PAMPHLETS. 

An Inquiry into the Authrnticity of the so- 
called FiKST Meeting- House, Preserved bV thi 
Essex Institute at Salem, Mass. 
By P^r.EN Putnam. 



2. The " Old Relic," ok The First Meeting House 
IN Salem, Massachusetts.— A Reply to certain 
Strictures in Mr. Rantoul's " Powerful De- 
fence," etc. 

Bv Abnek Cheney Goouell. 



A Letter to Thomas Carroll, Concerning the 
First Meeting House in Salem, Mass. 

By GlLHERl ].. SlKKETER. 



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Accession Number i 



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By trwUHtto 

OCT 35 mt> 



AN INQUIRY INTO THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE SO-CALLED 
FIRST MEETING HOUSE AT SALEM, nA55. 



BY EBEN PUTNAM, 



<' . , . the ajoimiiHMK'ss of tlie relic rests upon the dictuin of 
no one man. Responsible names have been in print for forty 
years, as vouchers for its claim, and as nobody has come forward 
during tliis ))eriod either to discredit the facts these local antiqua- 
ries thought they hud established, or to refute the reasoning on 
which they rested their deductions, or to produce new facts not 
known to them, which ought to impair the value of their results, 
I suppose the queHlit)n of authenticity must now be con8i<lered 
closed, so far as such a question can be." From address of R. S. 
Rantoul, ]>resident of the Essex Institute, 15 May, 18!Mt, advocat- 
ing restoring and preserving the "relic". 



Two liundrod and seventy years ago there was gathered in 
Salem a church, the first reliirionH society organized in America. 
Contemporaneous accounts of the formation of this church have 
come down to us, t)ut no description of the place where that 
event occurred. It has been suggested that the ceremonies 
were conducted in the open air. 

There is in Salem a small frame l)uilding, and it is claimed 
that the frame at least — the outer shell is modern — is that of 
the first meeting-house erected in Salem. There is no record 
extant of the date of the erection, or of the dimensions of the 
first meeting-house at Salem. The earliest mention of the 
meeting-house upon the town records refers to re})airs of a 
building standing in 1035. 

Rev. William lientley prepared "A description and history 
of Salem" which was published by the Mass. Hist. Soc. pp. 
ai2-288 of Vol. VI, 1st series, of their collections for 1799. 

(207) 



r ^1 

.SiP8 

208 AUTHENTICITY OF FIRST MEETING HOUSE IN SALEM. 

In this valuable historical sketch Dr. Bentley stated (page 226) 
' 'An unfinished building, of one story, was used occasion- 
ally for public worship in Salem, from 1629 to 1634. A 
proper house was then erected by Mr. Norton, who was 
to have £100 sterling for it. The old church now stands 
upon the same spot. The house was rebuilt in 1671, to 
be 60 feet by 50, not to cost above £1000 currency." 
The claims advanced for the "relic" preserved, at Salem are 
that it was built by Norton in 1634, that it is the frame of the 
first meeting-house erected in Massachusetts, which was used 
until 1672, and that it received an addition equal to its original 
proportions in 1639. 

The site of the first meeting house was nearly the same as 
that occupied by subsequent buildings and is still the property 
of the religious society succeeding to the First parish in Salem. 
No doubt during the pleasant weather of the summer of 
1629 open air meetings sufiiced, and the governor's "great 
house" or such other place as was convenient for so large an 
assembly as surely gathered on the Sabbath, may have met 
temporary requirements during inclement weather. But haste 
would have been made to provide suitable accommodations 
a.o;ainst the winter. The meetino-.house would have been de- 
signed to meet the requirements of the present and expected 
congregations. It has ever been that ecclesiastical structures 
are planned beyond the ability of completion at the expected 
time. That this was the case at Salem is probable. Carpen- 
ters and all such found their services greatly in demand. 

That the people of Salem worshipped in a building sufficient- 
ly large to accommodate the rapidly growing congregation, is 
the writer's belief, and that the claims put forward in assertion 
of the identity of the frame of the so-called ' ' First Church" 
are founded on incomplete and untrustworthy evidence is also 
his belief. 

Dr. Bentley appears to have had no other than traditionary 



AUTHENTICITY OF FIRST MEETING HOUSE IN SALEM. 209 

authority or some chance reference* for his statement. He did 
not attempt to give the dimensions of the building, nor did he, 
though writing in 1799, and having been pastor of a Salem 
church and an ardent antiquary for many years, know of the 
existence of any portion of the old church. Felt, writing 
twenty years later, repeats Bentley's statement and apparently 
knew nothing further. 

Nearly fort}' years later the attention of some members of 
the Essex Institute was called to a shed standing in a remote 
part of Salem on land formerly belonging to Thorndike Proc- 
tor. The tradition regarding this shed follows^. It will be 
noted that here the words "made from" are used. 

"Enos Pope, son of Joseph 2d, was born in 1690; he lived 
near the Fowler house iu Boston street. In 1718 he built the 
house now occupied hy Mr. Wilkins, at the foot of Gallows 
Hill, which was within a few rods of this old building, in which 
Enos 2d was born in 1721, -and who died at the aee of 92. 
Enos 3d was l)orn in 1769. My recollections of my grand- 
father, Enos 2d, are very clear and distinct. Until a few 
months of his death he was very active, clear-minded and com- 
municative. He was frequently inquired of by people with 
regard to previous events, and he was so exact in his account 
of dates and particulars, that it was supposed he had kept a 
journal for many years, which was not the case. 

"I remember his pointing out the -course of the old road, 
which passed the tavern house and joined the present street 
directly opposite his house. With Enos Po))e 3d I lived .near 
forty years. He was full of information and anecdotes, and 
yet very cautious and careful in his statements. It is from 
him and his sisters, who lived in the family long after their 
father's death, that I got the account. It was never doubted 

* In a pamphlet entitled "The Story of the Mcetins House built at Salem in 1634-5", 
page 8. IS a note to the effect that Bentley may have derived his authoriry from papers 
relating to "Salem's Ancient Things" (see nages 7S-9 of Diary of Ben1. Lynde) which 
wereloanedby Judge Lynde to Rev. Thomas Prince about 1736. These papers are 
not with the Prince Collection in the Boston Public Library nor has any trace of 
them been found. 

+ Report of Committee. Edition 1S97, pp. 19, 20. 



210 AUTHENTICITY OF FIRST MEETING HOUSE IN SALEM. 

by them. It should be remembered that the persons I have 
named were separated only by death, although very long-lived ; 
father, son and grandson have lived together in the same house, 
and the connection that bound the past to the present was 
never broken for a day. Two persons are now living who 
were born in the old tavern, viz., Benj. Proctor, aged 84, and 
his sister. I have just seen them, and find that they well 
remember that it was always known as having been made from 
the 'First Meeting House'. Mr, Proctor says he has heard 
his father say so more than a hundred times. A few years 
ago I mentioned to an older brother of theirs, since dead, what 
I had heard of its early history, and found him much better 
informed than I was, and much interested in having the house 
preserved. It was from him I first learned that the house 
itself afl'ords so much evidence of its origin. " 
A committee appointed by the Essex Institute examined the 
evidences, and with more enthusiasm than historical accuracy 
accepted as final the opinion that the frame was the identical 
frame which served to carry the covering of the original 
church building. The report of the committee, as well as a 
sketch of the church, intending to corroborate the findings of 
the committee, are printed in pamphlet form and distributed 
by the Essex Institute. 

It is well now to revert to what is actually known concern- 
ing the church, and to discard all theories based on tradition, 
circumstantial evidence, or reasonable hypothesis. 
AVhat are the Known Facts. 

It is known that church services were held as soon after 
Higginson's arrival* as possible, and from our knowledge of 
Endicott and his company we can surmise that regular religious 
meetings had been held previously. We remain in ignorance 
as to where these early meetings were held. 

When the " meetins-house" was erected it stood where its 
successors stood, allowing for some small variation in the loca- 

, * June 29, 1629. 



AUTHENTICITY OF FIRST MEETING HOUSE IN SALEM. 211 

tion of the walls of each structure. On Oct. 8, 1718, Rev. 
Samuel Fiske* was ordained pastor. According to the record, 
which may be found on page 105 of AVhite's "New England 
Conffregationalism, " the church met for the ordination service 
in the new church, now almost finished. It was begun to be 
raised on May 121, 1718. The congregation'lirst set to worship 
God in it July 13, 1718. "This is the third house erected 
for the puplic worship of God, on the same spot of land on 
which the first church was built in this town, and which was 
the first in the province."' Mr. Fiske, who made the above 
record, was the grandson of Rev. John Fiske, who has left us 
a coi)y of the earliest records of the church, dating from 1637, 
and older than the present records of the church. The elder 
Fiske was assistant to Hugh Peter. 

At this ordination in 1718 there were present many persons 
to whom the story of the church building must have been 
familiar. Rev. John Higginson, the son of Rev. Francis 
Higginson, the founder of the church, was born in 1616, and 
admitted to the Salem church at the age of fifteen, before his 
father's death. In 1659 he was called to the church at Salem, 
and served there until 1708, when he died. Here was a man 
whose lifetime and personal knowledge covered the whole of 
the history of the Salem church over which he was pastor, to 
a date within ten years of the entry on the records to which 
so much importance attaches. 

There are two important statements in the above records. 
First, that the then building ^vas the third erected on the same 
spot on which the first church was built. Second, that the 
first building was the first church building in the province, for 
the record plainly refers to the building, not the organization. 

It could not have been the first church built unless erected 
prior to 1632, for the first meeting-house in Roxbury, which 
stood on Meeting House Hill, was erected in that year. Drake 

* Rev. Samuel Fiske vras an ancestor of the writer, who also descends from Rev. 
Francis Higginson, Kev. John Hi.Lrtrinson and Rev. John Sparhawk. all pastors of this 
church; also from Rev. John Fiske. sometime assistant to Rev. Hugh Peter at Salem, 
and grandfather of Rev. Samuel Fiske. 



212 AUTHENTICITY OF FIRST MEETING HOUSE IN SALEM. 

says of it : "It was a rude and ' unbeautified' structure, with 
a thatched roof,* destitute of shingles or plaster ; without gal- 
lery, pew or spire, and probably similar to that of Dedham in 
its dimensions, the latter being thirty-six feet long, twenty 
feet wide and twelve feet high in the stud, " 

The meeting-house in Boston, which was sold in 1639 was 
erected in 1632. At that date there were meeting-houses in 
other towns. The meetino^-house in Cambridge was built in 
1632 and had a bell. There had been very few inhabitants 
in Cambridge prior to that date. In 1650 the old building 
was replaced with one forty feet square. 

Dorchester had erected a meeting-house in 1633 or earlier. 
This was replaced by a larger structure in 1645, apparently at 
a cost of £250. 

The second meeting house in Salem was erected in 1670, 
and superseded the first meeting-house, which was erected 
"the first in the Province." 

The original church records have disappeared. Those now 
in existence date only from 1660, but contain copies of what 
was judged worthy of preservation. The town records begin 
with entries in the Book of Grants dated 1 Oct., 1634. The 
Town Proceedings begin with a record of Dec. 26, 1636. The 
Book of Grants was begun in 1640, and probably contains a 
copy of all grants of lands prior to that date of which the 
recorder, Emanuel Downing, could discover. 

On the 22, 6th mo., 1635, the toAvn ordered that Mr. Endi- 
cott and others should consider some convenient place for 
shops, and from the record we learn of "divers speeches 
aljout convenient places for shops, for workmen, as at the head 
of the meeting-housef from William Lord's corner fence." 

On the 28th 1st mo., 1636, William Lord had land granted 

* It is doubtful if the church at Salem was thatched, for Rev. Francis Higginson 
•wrote, before the winter of 1639, "At this instant we are setting a brick kiln on 'Work 
to make bricks and tiles for the building of our houses." 

+ In this connection as showing the value of a location near the meeting-house, it 
is interesting to compare the proceedings which took place at Boston four years 
later regarding the site of the meeting-house. The traders who had erected stalls 
and shops near the meeting-house objected to its transfer. See Winthrop I, 318.] 



AUTHENTICITY OF FIRST MEETING HOUSE IN SALEM. 213 

him in exchange for part of his house lot which he hath given 
to the meeting-house. On the 15 May, 1660, an agreement 
was entered into between Lord and the Selectmen to settle 
"a difference about some land about the meeting-house, part of 
the said Lord's house lott formerly which he the said Lord 
saith was never yet paid for ... to satistie him for all 
that part of his house lott which was formerly layed to the 
setting of the meeting-house upon, and all that land that is now 
unfenced round al)out the meeting-house, and what else about 
his house or houses that lyeth unfenced." 

In 1669 Lord sued John Home for dwelling upon and pos- 
sessing part of his land belonging to his house lot where he 
now dwelleth upon pretence of a grant from the Towne or the 
Selectmen of Salem which they had not power to do. 

John Home had a grant of land between Lord and Hilliard 
IS Nov., 1661. Lord had succeeded to the estate formerly 
possessed by Rev. Francis Higginson, whose house had been 
built for him by the comi)any. After his death in 1630 it 
was ffiven to his widow who allowed Rev. Roger Williams, 
her husband's successor in the ministry, to occupy it until sold 
to John Woolcott. Woolcott sold to Lord, 8 Oct., 1635. 

This parsonage lot naturally was adjoining to the church 
and by vote of the company was originally designed to pass to 
successive ministers,* but from the circumstances brought about 
by Higginson's death was diverted from its original use. 

Skelton, Higginson's associate, had land extending from the 
road now Essex street to the South river and east of the meet- 
ing house. 

In view of the date of Lord's purchase of the Higginson 
property the land he gave to the meeting-house before 28th 
1 mo., 1636 [i. e. April, 1636, new style] and which in 1660 
is spoken of as part of his house lot formerly laid to the set- 
ting of the meeting-house upon, it is quite evident that either 
reference is made to the addition of 1639 or that the first 

* Young's Chronicles, pp. 207-12. agreements with the ministers. 



214 AUTHENTICITY OF FIRST MEETING HOUSE IN SALEM, 

meeting-house was put upon land enclosed within the par- 
sonage* lot and to which Lord may have had some sort of a 
claim through his purchase. The town certainly intended to 
quiet any claim to land about the meeting-house. 

On the 15th 3 mo., 1637, the town remitted freely to Mr. 
Sharpe £4 he had underwritten for the imeeting-house. John 
Sweet, who had underwritten £2, was not so fortunate. 

On the 16th 11th mo., 1637, accounts showing that Adams 
was paid £1.7.10 for daubing the meeting-house, and John 
Bushnell 7 sh. 4 d. "toward the glassing of the windows in the 
meeting-house," were approved. • 

On the 21st, 10th mo., 1638, it was "Agreed that there 
should forthwith an addition to the meeting-house be builded, 
and that there should be a rate made and levied for the pay- 
ment thereof, the seven men to see it effected and to pay for 
it. " The result of this vote is seen by the action of the select- 
men who, on the 4th, 12th mo., 1638, agreed with John 
Pickering to build a meeting-house twenty-five feet long and 
"the breadthf of the old building". He was to receive £63 or 
more, and finish his contract in four months. 

In Dec, 1641, the General Court allowed Salem to present 
their .meeting-house as their watch house, thereby freeing 
themselves from neglect of the law passed in 1637, that "every 
town shall provide a sufficient watch house upon paine of £5. " 
Charlestown, Hingham and Lynn had the same privileges 
granted to them at this court. 

In 1646 it was ordered the bell of the meeting-house should 
ring on notice of burials. 

In 1646 nails for covering the meeting-house are promised 
by Captain Hawthorne and Mr. Corvvin, who are to take their 
pay in corn. The following 3^ear Mr. Corwin promised to 
provide speedily for the covering of the meeting-house five 

* For an account of the dwelling houses of the early ministers see a paper by 
W. P. Upham, Essex Institute Historical Collections, Vfll, 350. 

+ The measure of the breadth of the old building is unknown. The supposition 
that the dimension was 17 feet is based simply upon the existence of a shed 17x30 feet. 



AUTHENTICITY OF FIRST MEETING HOUSE IN SALEM. 215 

hundred nails. Also, he and William Lord undertake to pro- 
vide stones and clay for the repair of the meeting-house. 

In 1647 action is taken on the town's boards for the meeting- 
house. In 1655 payments are authorized to repair the town 
house for the school and watch, and to repair the meeting- 
house. On the 22d, 6th mo., 1657, a rate of £50 was voted 
for the meeting-house, and a like sum for the minister's house. 
and £18 for a new bell and hansrins thereof. Also that year 
five shillings were paid for one hundred clapboard for the 
meeting-house, and £18 to Mr. Corwin for the bell and Mrs 
Goose, and £5 to Mr. Brown for hanging the bell. Mr. Brown 
also received £50 for repairing the meeting-house. [Salem 
Toicn Recoi'ds.'] 

These items show that a meeting-house had been erected 
prior to 1635 ; that constant repairs were necessary ; that in 
1638 more room was needed, which was supplied in 1639 ; 
that in 1657 a considerable alteration was made in the meeting- 
house and at a large expense, and at the same time the town 
bought a new Ijell which was mounted in place of the old one. 

Of the dimensions of the meeting-house there is no record 
except the hint conveyed in the contract aAvarded to Pickering, 
and of which Ave print a fac-simile. In view of the vote imme- 
diately prior to the awarding of that contract, undoubtedlythe 
work done by Pickering was to build an addition to the meeting- 
house, not to construct a new building separate from the old. 
The breadth of the old building was to be the breadth of the 
addition, which was twenty-five feet in length. The ingenious 
reasoning of the committee of the Essex Institute by which it 
was attempted to prove that the addition simply doubled the 
seating capacity of the old house was based upon the fact that 
the dimensions of an old shed found on Boston street required 
such reasoninor. 

This meeting-house stood until 1672, althouorh the new church, 
the second edifice, was erected by reason of a vote of the town 
taked in 1670. 



216 AUTHENTICITY OF FIRST MEETING HOUSE IN SAI.EM. 

The dimensions of the second meeting-house were 60 feet 
by 50, and 20 feet stud. In 1672 when the "Village" people 
got permission to build a meeting-house they built one meas- 
uring 28 feet by 34, and 16 feet stud. The population of the 
precinct at that time was, not unlikely, nearly as large as that 
of Salem in 1629 when, probably, the first meeting-house was 
erected. 

The new meeting-house was placed just west of the old. house, 
and it was not till Aug. 17, 1672, that a general town meeting 
was called "to consider whether the old meeting-house shall 
be taken down or sold as it stands." The record of this meet- 
ing stands as follows : 

"Att A General Town meeting held the 17th August: 
1672. Its voated that the old meeting-house be reserved 
for the towne use, and to build a skoole house and watch 
house. Its voated that the old meeting house shall be 
taken down and that every family in the towne, and which 
belong to the towne, shall send one man of a family to 
helpe to take it downe and to cany it into some convenient 
place wher it may (be stored) be reserved for the townes 
use, and that for time when to begin to doe it and the 
number of men to worke each day it is left to the Select- 
men to appoint. The old pulpitt and the Deacons seat is 
given to the Farmers. Voated. The stones of the under- 
pinning of the old meeting house and the clay of the old 
meeting house is .given to Jno. Fisk. [The words in 
parentheses were written over, then scratched. ] At a meet- 
ing of the selectmen the 17 August, 1672. Its ordered 
that the old meeting house be begun to be taken downe 
the 10 of this present month, and the constables are 
appointed to warne 30 men a day to appear to helpe to 
take it downe, and they are to begin to warne them at 
Strong Water brook, and soe downwards to the lower end 
of the towne." 
The town at this date felt the need of better schoolhouse 



AUTHENTICITY OF FIRST MEETING HOUSE IN SALEM. 217 

accommodations, as well as a more convenient town house. 
The present town house had been in use as early as 1652. On 
March 25, 1071, the town voted "the selectmen shall take 
care and provide a house for Mr. Epps to keep skoole in till 
his year be out which will be in July or August next. " By a 
subsequent vote it appears that the school ended July IS, and 
the new year began immediately. 

The old meeting-house was taken down, for under date of 
Jan. 28, 1672-73, it is recorded that £5-3-0 was paid to oSIr. 
Geduey, Sr. , for expense in taking down the old meeting-house 
and for the selectmen's expenses. Also paid four shillings to 
Nathaniel Pickman, Sr., "for work to ye old meeting-house'\ 
The selectmen in April, 1673, called a town meeting for the 
21st of April, to consider "concerning building a school house 
and watch house of the timber of the old meeting house or 
otherwise disposing of it". The raeetmg, so called, "Voated 
that Mr. "William Browne, 8r., Captain Price and Mr. 
Samuel Gardner are appointed and empowered to agree 
with a carpenter or carpenters to build a house for the 
toAvne which may serve for a school house and watch house 
and towne house of the timber of the old meetiuix-house 
according as the timber will bear". 
Surely these votes effectually prove that the old meeting- 
house, twice extensively repaired, had been torn down; that 
nearly the entire aljlebodied force of the town was needed, in 
daily gangs of thirty, to get it down; that the timber was 
stored for future service; and finally was ordered to be 
inspected, and such parts as were suitable employed in the 
construction of a large building which should serve as a school- 
house, a watch-house and a town-house. 

So far we can follow the old first meeting-house. From 
this last vote it is evident that the principal timbers of the 
house, which had been torn down, not moved away, were con- 
sidered town property and were utilized when occasion offered. 
A year later the town was still without its new town house, 



218 AUTHENTICITY OF FIRST MEETING HOUSE IN SALEM. 

for on lOd. 9mo., 1674, it was voted: "The towne house shall 
be sett up by the prison, and William Donton to raise itt with 
what speed he can." 

Three years later, June 16, 1677, it was voted that the town 
house be moved to the street near about John Roapes's house, 
and on Sept. 8, 1677, Daniel Andrews "is to build the chim- 
nies and to till and larth the walls of ye town house and under- 
pin the same. Jno. Scelling to linish ye town house, to shingle, 
clapboard, floare, windows, staires and all other things needful 
with respect to carpenters' work . . . and to have £20".* 
The Imposture. 

It is, then, with interest that one turns to the pamphlet dis" 
tributed by the Essex Institute at Salem, entitled "The Story 
of the Meeting-house Built at Salem in 163-1-35", purporting 
to describe the small framed building removed to the grounds 
of the society between 1860-.5, which is jealously guarded as 
the frame of the first meeting-house in Salem. This shed, 
out-house, annex to a tavern, so much honored and which, it is 
now proposedf to "restore" to its "original appearance", and 
to further protect by enclosing it within an addition to the 
Institute building, is seventeen by twenty feet, and by a most 
iuofenious course of reasonino- has been declared to fit on to the 
addition built by Pickering in 1639. It is a building which, 
under the most favorable auspices, could never have seated 
one half of the inhabitants of Salem in 1629. In 1637 
there were nearly nine hundred inhabitants of Salem,** and the 
spirit of religion in those days called for frequent and lengthy 
services. Nor would attendance by relays of the faithful have 
been looked upon with favor. Yet we are asked to believe 
that this small room, not larger than an ordinary sized bed- 
room, during a decade sufficed the people of Salem, a town of 

* It is needless to state that £20 at this period was equivalent to a much larger 
sum at the present time. 

+ Pages 8. 9. of the annual report of the Essex Institute for the year ending May 15> 
1899, in address of the president, R. S. Rantoul. 

** Salem records; enumeration of heads of families and number in each family, for 
carrying out the distribution of certain lands. See Essex Inst. Hist. Col. IX. 101. 



AUTHENTICITY OF FIRST MEETING HOUSE IN SALEM. 219 

SO great importance that there was reasonable hope of its selec- 
tion as the capital. 

The report of the committee is a mixture of fact and fiction. 
It 'beofins with the mis-statement: "AVe have the assurance 
from the records that the congregation having worshipped 
from 1029 to 1634 in an unfinished building of one story, 
agreed, that latter year, with ]Mr. Norton, to build a suitable 
meeting-house which should not exceed the amount of £100." 
In their final report they particularize further, even daring to 
give the month that Norton received his contract, and stating 
the trees were felled in the winter of 1035, and that the build- 
ing was erected in the summer of that year; that the glazed 
windows prolmbly were ordered from England in 1030 and 
were not added till 1037 and paid for in 103.S. 

\s'e have alreadv shown Avhat the records do say re^ardinof 
the meeting-house. Certainly there is not a word -in the rec- 
ords upon which the al)ove statement could l^e l)ased, except 
the payment for daubing and the small sum for glassing the 
windows, and there was a glasshouse in Salem in 1038. 

But the most woeful misrepresentation of the vote of the 
town in 1072 appears on page seventeen of the latest edition 
(1897i of the pamphlet mentioned. There it is said the town 
' ' 'voted, that the old meeting-house be reserved for the town's 
use, to build a school house and watch house', and be carried 
'into some convenient place, where it may be reformed for 
the town's use'." 

A comparison of the lines just quoted with the actual record 
(page 210) is quite sufficient to create distrust of the entire 
report of the committee. While it as not necessary to criti- 
cise further the reports of this committee of 1800, it will be 
profitable to point out a few inaccuracies in the "story of the 
meeting-house", probably written in 1897, and abounding with 
learned references, and which undoubtedly has the countenance 
of the presiding officers of the society. It begins by stating 
"the object of these pages is to establish the fact that the little 



220 AUTHENTICITY OF FIRST MEETING HOUSE IN SALEM. 

structure to which they refer encloses the frame of the earliest 
Puritan meeting-house reared on this continent, of which a 
trace remains". This closing clause apparently was not added 
as a saving clause, for the author on the next page shows that 
he was not aware of any structure intended as a meeting-house 
having been erected prior to 1634, either in Boston, Cambridge, 
or Roxbury. 

The school and watch were accommodated in the town house 
not the meeting-house, as early as 1655, as the extract from 
the record as printed on page 215 makes plain. 

A few words as to the number of men called upon in 1672 
to tear down the old meeting-house. In 1672 there were 
fully 300 able-bodied men""' liable for watch duty within the 
limits of the "watch" at Salem town, not including at least 
forty families, probably more, outside the limits. Therefore 
some idea may be arrived at of the number of days it took to 
tear the old meeting-house down. Certainly to demolish a 
structure 45 by 17 feet, of one story, about double the size of 
the little shed on vieAv at Salem, could not require the services 
of thirty men for a week or two ; and we know from the rec- 
ord that the building was taken down, not removed. 

The old meeting-house was called upon to accommodate 
nearly as many persons as the new. In 1657 the people living 
on Bass river side, now Beverly, had permission to maintain 
preaching. They were set off to form a church 4 July, 1667. 
Preaching was set up at the Village (Danvers) in 1672 and a 
church formed there iu 1689. The Marblehead church was 
gathered 13 Aug., 1684, but they had had preaching among 
themselves before that. 

* In 1667 the residents of what afterward' became Salem Village parish remonstrated 
against being called upon to watch Salem town. In their petition the remonsti-ants 
state that there were "near 300 able persons within the limits of the watch and our- 
selves left out". Also that on an emergency Salem would raise 400 men. See Put- 
nam's Hist. Mag. Vol. V, p. 144. Bentley says, p. 228, that in 1078 there were 300 polls 
in the township. The tax list for 1683 is :'extant and enumerates 576 males. In 1686 
there were 100 freeholders in the town. Beverly had been setoff 14 Oct., 1668. Felt, 
p. 257, estimates that as there were twenty-five tithing men in Salem in 1677 there 
were about 250 families there, consequently he reckons over 1400 inhabitants at that 
date, which is probably an under rather than over estimate. 



AUTHENTICITY OF FIRST MEETING HOUSE IN SALEM. 221 

It is a pity, of course, to deprive Salem of so interesting a 
relic as the "old First Church", but historical accuracy is the 
main point. It is strange that the imposition, not wilful of 
course, should have lasted so long and in the face of at least 
two investigations into the history of the building, as evidenced 
by two unsigned articles, the one quoted above and the other 
printed in the "Historical Collections of the Essex Institute" 
for IbyO. 



The article printed above appeared, with some slight changes, 
in the Boston Evening Transcript of July 26, 1899. The author 
had for several years intended to make an independent inves- 
tigation of the evidence existing, as his scepticism Avas not 
lessened by conversations with the late Henry Wheatland and 
other antiquaries. 

The author lielieves sufficient proof has been presented to 
show the need of fresh and impartial investigation of the sub- 
ject. The exhibition of the building conveys a Avroug impres- 
sion of the besrinninfrs of Salem to adults and children alike. 
Thousands visit it each year and representations of it are 
shown everywhere. 

It seems to the author that all that may be claimed for the 
present structure is that according to a tradition not disproven 
by records, some wood from the meeting-house torn down in 
1673, of which a part icas probably erected in 1629 and 
standing in 163.5, was used in building this shed. So careful a 
statement should l)e made as \o prevent misconcejjtions, espec- 
ially concerning the dimensions and design of the meeting-house, 
which was probably a commodious, dignified and fitting struc- 
ture for its dav and use. 



222 AUTHENTICITY OF FIRST MEETING HOUSE IN SALEM. 

A perfect example of the manner in which research and 
arofument concernino; the first meetinsr-house in Salem has been 
conducted appears on pages 158-160 of Vol. 25 of the Hist. 
Col. of the Essex Institute. In an article entitled "The Gov. 
Endecott Estate," but under a sub-title, "Was Gov. Ende- 
cotfs House the First Place of WorshipT', appears the follow- 
ing alleged quotation from a letter from James Cudworth of 
Scituate to his step-father Stoughton dated Dec, 1631:, quoted 
in part in Vol. I, p. 194, Colonial Series, English State Papers. 
Says the writer of the Endecott article, ' 'These are his* words 
— "Some of the church of Salem have cut out the cross on the 
flag or antient that they carry before them when they train. 
Capt. Endecott, their Captain, a holy, honest man, utterly 
abandons it. His house, being the Jargest, is their Meeting- 
house, where they are as yet but 60 persons." 

The writer of the Endecott article (which is unsigned) fur- 
ther says: "The query suggested by Cud worth's use of the 
word 'meeting-house' is whether he meant that the Governor's 
house was their place of worship or their place of rendezvous 
'when they train'^;". Does he mean by '60 persons' sixty heads 
of families in the church, sixty men capable of bearing arms, 
or sixty attendants at divine worship':? Or is Cudworth in 
error and speaking without sufficiently exact information?" 

By reference to the authority given it appears that the words 
given above in quotations are not the words nor the meaning 
of Cudworth. The quotation, by the editor of the Colonial 
papers, from James Cudworth's letter is simply "cut out the 
cross in the flag or ancient that they carry before them when 
they train". The editor further gives the sense of Cudworth 
in the following words. "Capt. Endecott, their captain, a 
holy, honest man, utterly abandons it. Hisf house, being the 
largest, is their meeting-house, where they are as yet but 60 
persons. " 

* [i. e. Cudworth's. e. p.] 

+ "His" refers to Cudworth. The reference is not as ambiguous as it appears here, 
for in the long paragraph— of short sentences— "he" or "his" refers back to Cudworth 
whose name appears in tlie opening sentence. 



AUTHENTICITY OF FIKST MEETING HOUSE IN SALEM. 223 

This volume of Colonial papers was published in 1860 and 
that same year Mr. S. G. Drake contributed to the N. E. 
Hist. Gen. Reg., Vol. 14, pp. 101-4, the letter of Cudworth 
in full. Following are the exact words of Cudworth: "One 
thing I canot but relate, & that not only with grefe for & with 
f eare of what will be the event of a strange thinge put in prac- 
tice by sum in the Church of Salem; but ])y whome I heare 
not, and that is they have Cut out the Crosse in the flage, or 
Ansient that they cari before them when they trayne. Inded 
it is contrary to the mindes & willes of all that I cann heare of. 
Captaine Indicat there Captaine is a holy honest man & dus 
utterly abandon it & who are the Aegeentes in it I cannot 
heare. Now, as concerning my owne })ertickuler . j^ . 
I have . •. as yet, the best house in the plantation, though 
})ut a meane one . . . My house is the meeting house 
because it is the bigest, but wee are but few, as yet, in niun- 
ber — not passinge 00 })ersons.''' 

How different is Cudworth's statement than presented in the 
Endecott article I It appears his information regarding the 
meeting-house and the population does not refer to Endecott's 
house nor Salem but to his own house and to Scituate. Neither 
was the word meeting-house capitalized as in the Endecott 
article in either Cudworth's letter or the Colonial Papers. 



With the Compliments 

of the Author. 



THE 



FIRST AIEETING HOUSE IN SALEM 
MASSACHUSETTS 



A REPLY TO CERTAIN STRICTURES 



MADE BY 



ROBERT S. RANTOUL, PRESIDENT OF THE ESSEX INSTITUTE 



POWERFUL DEFENCE OF THE OLD SALEM RELIC 

PRIVATELY READ BY HIM AT A MEETING OF THE DIRECTORS 

OF THE INSTITUTE OCT. 2, 1S99 AND PUBLICLY 

ADVERTISED BY HIM IN THE " BOSTON 

EVENING TRANSCRIPT " 

OCT. iS, 1899 



ABNER CHENEY GOODELL 
Senior Vice-President of the Institute 

{Read at a meeting of the Directors, Feb. j, iqoo) 



CORRIGENDA. 
Page 9, line 22, for " mittiori" read " mifiori." 
" 16, line 13, for " to " read " on." 
" 19, line 2, insert " next " after " successor," and fide the parentheses in this 

and the next line. 
" " line 3, insert a comma after " presidency." 
" 21, line 24, rfp?e " other." 
" 22, line 13, at the end, dele the comma. 

" 25, line 24, substitute " employing " tor " and employed." 
" 26, line 24, substitute " unfitted " for " spoiled." 
" 37, first line, dele the comma after " meeting." 
" " line 33, dele " superficial." 
" 43, line 3.5, dele the dash. 
" "line 36, insert, after " school house," a comma, and, alter "which," the 

words, "as 1 have already intimated." 
" 49, line 17, for " alloted " read " allotted." 
" 53, line 22, for " declares "read " declared." 

" .59, line 31 , transfer comma from after " junior " to after " added." 
" 66, line 22, tor " publication " read " publications." 



Mr. President and Gentlemen : 

At a meeting of this Board on the second of October last, 
after hstening to the reading of a most extraordinary paper by 
the President, I moved that it be laid upon the table, and asked 
to be permitted to reply to it. In view of the confusion of dates 
and circumstances, and the contradictions and irrelevancies, in 
which that paper abounds, and which must be duly weighed and 
winnowed in order to discover precisely the grievance com- 
plained of, I asked that I be given until this meeting to formu- 
late my reply. 

As the President, with the records before him, antl other 
documents of reference easily accessible, had spent weeks if not 
months in collecting and combining the material for this supreme 
effort, in which he has ingeniously contrived to include only 
whatever seemed to support his contentions and to exclude 
everything that would not harmonize with them, I do not think 
that the time granted me was excessive. And even now I feel 
that had I the same opportunities which he enjoys, and denies 
to all others, perhaps I might be able more briefly if not more 
conclusively to expose his unfairness, correct his misrepresenta- 
tions, and refute his fallacious arguments and inferences. 

I confess that I came to listen to Mr. Rantoul not wholly un- 
prepared to be personally roasted, to some extent. During the 
last summer, — I should say not long after my attention had been 
first called to Mr. Putnam's refutation of the statements and ar- 
guments upon which the claim to genuineness of the supposed 
relic of the First Meeting-house in Salem is founded, — I had an 
intimation that I might expect something of the kind sooner or 
later. A quiet, modest young man called upon me at my house 
(presenting his card as the reporter of a local paper) with ref- 
erence to my authorization of the printed signature to two re- 
ports, which, for more than twenty years past, Mr. Rantoul has 
been industriously publishing as undoubtedly authentic, without 
taking the pains to consult me. I advised the young man to 
ask Mr. Rantoul to show him the paper or papers purporting to 



bear my signature, and when he should have reported to me that 
he had seen such a paper it would be soon enough for me to 
engage in a controversy into which, evidently, Mr. Rantoul was 
bent upon dragging me or my name. I adiled that Mr. Ran- 
toul's purpose could be of no beneficial service to the Institute 
or to the public, who, if interested at all, were probably more 
desirous to know whether Mr. Putnam's views of the invalidity 
of the claims made for the supposed relic were sound or other- 
wise, than to discuss the question whether or not I had signed 
the committee's reports, or, for some reason or no reason, in 
the course of forty years, had changed my mind. Some one 
sent me a cutting from the " Salem Evening News " of Sept. 12, 
1899, in which Mr. F. C. Damon printed a letter, written by 
him to Mr. Rantoul on the eighteenth of August last, wherein he 
charges the latter with taking the position, " with our Mr. Far- 
rell," — meaning the reporter to whom I have alluded, — that 
he " did not propose to furnish any ammunition for Mr. Goodell." 
This letter was replied to by Mr. Rantoul on the next day in a 
letter in which he refers to the reports I have mentioned, in the 
following language : — 

" To suppose that these two reports were dishonestly, or carelessly, or 
ignorantly made up or that they have been tampered with in the printing, 
is to impugn the credit and intelligence of those immediately concerned. 
Of this group Mr. Goodell is the last survivor. For a series of years he was, 
from 1861, chairman of the Publication Committee and became vice-presi- 
dent of the Historical Department the next year. No one 7vas in a better 
position to know if anything irregular or questionable was done or anything 
omitted, upon which the verdict of those investigators can be set aside. I 
think you will agree with me that the time to search the archives of the 
Institute has not yet arrived." 

It is important to observe that neither in this letter nor in 
that of Mr. Damon to which it replies are any " investigators " 
mentioned as such. 

Still later, on August twenty-second, Mr. Rantoul continues 
his reference to me in this style : — 

"If Mr. Goodell has, for any reason, as you say he has, been led to ques- 
tion the genuineness of the old meeting-house, — if in any way he has been 
brought to think that it is another meeting-house than the one we suppose 
it to be, — you need no help from me in stating his position. Vou naturally 



5 

look to him for that. But the claim that, forty years ago, he was not in har- 
mony with the committee, and was nut as fully responsible for the results 
they put before the pulMic as any one of them, is a ne-w one, and I doubt 
your authority for it. If that is what you are taking pains to probe, I think 
The News will find itself beating the air or fighting a straw man. The 
moment evidence is produced on that point I think you will find Mr. 
Goodell promptly denying that he has ever made such a claim. 

" If you will put me, at any time, in possession of a statement, signed or 
authorized by Mr. Goodell, to the effect that he was not as fully as any 
member of the investigating committee responsible for the two reports made 
by them in April, i860, and in June, 1S65, and published over his name, I 
will then write you further." 

Thus he impliedly reaffirms the declaration he made in his 
address May 15, 1889, that inasmuch as, for forty years past, — 

" nobody has come forward . . . either to discredit the facts these local 
antiquaries thought they had established, or to refute the reasoning on which 
they rested their deductions, or to produce new facts, not known to them, 
which ought to impair the value of their results, I suppose the question of 
authenticity wtisi no'o be considered closed, so far as such a question can be." 

Now, since, so far as I know, it had never been intimated, 
until Mr. Rantoul delivered his address in May last, that my 
uniform and persistent contention, from the very beginning, 
against the genuineness of the supposed relic was not generally 
understood, and since, so far as was consistent with modesty, 
I had maintained my position and given my reasons, at some 
length, at the meeting of the Institute, April 26, i860, with the 
result that the coiTimittee's report was recommitted, and the 
matter put over to the third of May, when I was again present, 
ready still further to oppose the scheme of appropriating money 
from our scant treasury for the purpose of removing and reerect- 
ing this old frame, I felt some curiosity to know upon what 
foundation, of fact or imagination or fallacious deduction, Mr. 
Rantoul had come to a conclusion so contrary to the truth. 

I will say, in passing, that I was spared further protest at the 
meeting of May third by the declaration that the committee was 
not prepared to report ; and that, at the annual meeting, which 
was held six days later, the consideration of the committee's re- 
port was resumed in my absence, and a vote was passed thank- 
ing the committee, and further instructing them, — 



" to take such action in relation to [the old frame] as they may deem advis- 
able — provided that the funds for this purpose be obtained by private sub- 
scription, or by such appropriation from the general income of the Institute 
as the Finance Committee may direct." 

All these proceedings were open and notorious. My protest 
against paying money from our treasury for this, to say the least, 
doubtful enterprise was so far heeded that, though not expressly 
ratified in the vote, it was practically operative, since not one 
cent of the money expended upon the old frame was contributed 
by the Institute, notwithstanding Mr. Rantoul's insinuation that 
the Institute purchased it of Mr. Nichols and paid for it through 
their committee. 

After this vote the scheme seemed to have been virtually 
abandoned. Only brief and casual notices of the movement had 
appeared in the newspapers, with the exception of the "Ob- 
server." This paper, edited by one of the most intelligent and 
careful contributors to our local press, himself, at that time, first 
among our local antiquaries, as well as the first to take notice of 
the old frame, years before, not as that of a " meeting-house," 
but as part of an " old tavern," — which was all that appears to 
have been then claimed for it, — received the report with due 
respect. After speaking of the supposed identification as ap- 
pearing " singular and almost incredible," he continues : "We are 
assured that this very interesting point is established as a fixed 
fact — a truth of history ; " and adds : " If it is so, then measures 
should be taken for the removal and preservation of this ancient 
edifice," etc. It is easy to read between these lines that this 
circumspect writer and antiquary received the report with due 
allowance for the possibility of error. 

After the momentary excitement of novelty had subsided, the 
project, as I have intimated, fell flat ; and it remained dormant 
for more than three years. Of its resuscitation I shall speak 
more particularly further on, when I come to consider Mr. 
George Atkinson Ward's participation in the business of remov- 
ing and reerecting the frame. 

I think I have adduced reasons enough for feeling called upon 
to set Mr. Rantoul right in one respect at least. I directly and 
unequivocally impugn his statements in the public press, and 



JD his address of May fifteenth, that for forty years nobody has 
come forward to discredit the facts relied upon by the com- 
mittee or to refute their reasoning, and that the claim that I 
" was not in harmony with the committee forty years ago, and 
was not as fully responsible for the results they put before the 
public, is a new one.'' Indeed, it is a pretty hard strain upon 
the charity with which every gentleman is bound to regard the acts 
and motives of another, to be willing to attribute such a statement 
respecting notorious facts that were clearly within Mr. Rantoul's 
cognizance at the time, to mistake or forgetfulness. 

I may add that Dr. Wheatland was not convinced of the gen- 
uineness of the so-called relic, although he, according to his in- 
variable practice, neither opposed the arguments nor interposed 
obstacles to the schemes of others, so long as they not only con- 
templated no considerable expense to the Institute, but, as in this 
case, had in view the increase -of space for the storing of the old 
furniture with which our apartments in Flummer Hall were over- 
crowded. No opponent of the committees' reports was more 
strenuous than was the late Caleb Buffum, who accompanied me 
to the Institute on one occasion to talk the matter over with 
Dr. Wheatland, his boyhood companion ; and the colloquy 
between the two was as spicy as it was entertaining — Buffum 
complaining of the Doctor's connivance at what he called " a 
fraud " and " a humbug," and the Doctor fencing, but in such a 
way that it was evident he deemed it not worth while to " make a 
fuss " over a small matter that, after all, if it did not result in giv- 
ing us an undoubted historic relic, afforded us a nearly fireproof 
shelter for other memorials of antiquity, the genuineness of which 
was established by documentary evidence. The Doctor, more- 
over, declined to assume the office of censor of the opinions of 
others, who might be right for aught that he positively kneia to the 
contrary. .Again, on this head, while Mr. Rantoul repeats the 
assertion that for forty years no impeachment of the committee's 
report has been attempted, let me call your attention to his decla- 
ration in his late address to this Board, made, apparently, in 
utter disregard for consistency, "■ that there have always been 
dissenters from the views " the committees expressed. 

Indeed ! and he might as well have specified who those 



8 

dissenters were, or some of them, and how and when they 
manifested their dissent. I have named some for him to begin 
with, and I can furnish more if he wishes to extend the list. 
And let me impress it upon him that if he would have the list 
complete, he diligently inquire into the origin of the opposition, 
so as not to omit the name of him who began it, and who bore 
the transient obloquy which it provoked, but whom Mr. Rantoul, 
as the pretended champion of the Institute, now seems to con- 
sider somehow responsible for a recent "attack" upon some- 
thing or somebody, — he does not indicate whom or what, except 
as any one may choose to construe the phrase " attack upon the 
authenticity of the First Meeting-house." But of this I shall say 
more when I come to give the details of ray own connection 
with the work of introducing this old building to public notice. 
Let me now proceed directly to consider Mr. Rantoul's paper 
— only premising that the " attack " to which he refers in the 
first paragraph was an article in the " Boston Evening Transcript " 
of July 26, 1899, by Mr. Eben Putnam, — substantially, I pre- 
sume, the same as printed in " Putnam's Historical Magazine " 
for August, 1899, edited and published at Danvers by the same 
Mr. Putnam, and of which, by his courtesy, each member of this 
Board, through the President, received a copy at our October 
meeting. Upon this so-called " attack " I may as well here as 
elsewhere offer some comment. Doubtless all of you have read 
this brochure, which is entitled " An Inquiry into the .'\uthentic- 
ity of the So-called First Meeting House preserved by the Easex 
Institute at Salem, Mass." If so, I think most of you will agree 
with me that it is a very able presentation of the facts and argu- 
ments against the conclusions of the committee of i860, and 
against whatever reenforcement or addition that report received 
from the committee of 1865 and from the author of " The Story 
of the Meeting House," printed in 1897. No previous essay 
upon either side of the controversy begins to compare with it in 
discriminating fulness of detail, clearness and acuteness of per- 
ception, exactness of quotation, fairness and perspicuity of state- 
ment, and cogency of argument. I do not remember to have 
ever read a controversial pamphlet freer from bitterness and 
partisan ebullition ; yet Mr. Rantoul calls it an " attack," and 



denounces it as " virulent," a word which is authoritatively defined 
as ^^ vety poisonous or venomous ; bitter in enmity; malignant; 
active in doing injury^ 

I confess my amazement at this charge from one whose posi- 
tion demands the exercise of the utmost urbanity towards his 
juniors and a constant purpose to overlook their failings. 

I have discovered but one word in the pamphlet that is suscep- 
tible of an offensive meaning ; and that is the word ^'Imposture" 
with which Mr. Putnam heads his description of the efforts that 
have been made by the committees and others, by mere assump- 
tion, based on misrepresentation of the record, to force the little 
structure on Gallows Hill, which he calls " this shed, outhouse, 
annex to a tavern," to tally with an ideal meeting-house, of 
which, he claims, there is not, and never was, any evidence of a 
corresponding reality. For my part, I see no impropriety in 
this use of the word, although I have felt, and so expressed my- 
self to Mr. Putnam, that it was unfortunate ; not that the word 
was necessarily offensive, but because it admits of equivocacy 
in its application, and so gives the captious and ill-disposed 
a hook upon which to hang an objection. By the rules of 
courtesy, as well as by the laws of judicial construction, all words 
should be taken, if possible, in mittiori sensu ; and all phrases 
are to be construed favorably, unless the contrary meaning is 
unequivocally intended. 

By the application of these principles no personal reflection 
should be inferred from Mr. Putnam's language, which we are 
bound to take — as he says he intended it — to apply to the 
building, which, he claims, under the circumstances, invites 
public regard as something that it is not : thus imposing upon 
the credulity of those who have not the means of correcting this 
false impression. At the worst, the word as used by Mr. Put- 
nam is a permissible metaphor by which no one need be 
deceived. The man who would infer from Pope's declaration 
that the London Monument, — 

" Like a tall bully lifts the head and lies," — 

that the column itself, or those who erected it, actually broke the 
ninth commandment of the Decalogue, intentionally , would 



10 

be worthy to take rank with the simpleton of wJiom Cowper 

sings, — 

" And e'en the child that knows no better 

Than to inteq>ret by the letter 

The story of a cock and bull. 

Must have a most uncommon skull." 

Thus much for this word as offensively applicable to con- 
temporary persons or things. 

In Mr. Rantoul's peroration he seems to indicate a grievance 
quite distinct from the one I have just described which I take 
from his exordium. The other I will consider presently, only 
turning aside here once more to say that it is possible I may 
have mistaken the gravamen of Mr. Putnam's offence in the eyes 
of the President, and that it may consist in something I find 
given, in the brief supplement of Mr. Putnam's pamphlet, as an 
example of the faulty manner in which, as he says, " research 
and argument concerning the First Meeting-house have been 
conducted." 

The example given is quoted from the anonymous contribution 
to the Notes and Queries in the twenty-fifth volume of the His- 
torical Collections of the Essex Institute. Mr. Putnam convicts 
the writer of a gross blunder in garbling and misapplying a 
passage in Cudworth's letter to Stoughton in 1634, a copy of 
which I procured from the Public-Record Office in Lx)ndon, 
nearly forty years ago ; and which, more than thirty years ago, 
was printed in our Collections ; — but of this the anonymous 
writer seems not to have been aware. By this misrepresenta- 
tion of Cudworth's meaning, the number of his little congrega- 
tion of sixty worshippers in the year 1634, at Scituate, was made 
to apply to the very much larger congregation of Roger Williams 
at Salem. 

This astounding muddle was made the basis of grave con- 
jecture as to what bearing the words " sixty persons " had upon 
the population of Salem at that time, and whether or not 
Governor Endicott's dwelling-house was the regular place of 
worship. 

But I see nothing in Mr. Putnam's criticism of this writer 
that is not fair, and pertinent to the subject in hand ; and if 



1 1 

Mr. Rantoul's esteem for this anonymous writer has induced 
him, in rebuffing the critic, to charge him or his criticism with 
being "virulent," I think his partiaHty for his friend has led him 
beyond the bounds of civility, and that he should apologize for 
the excessive heat of his resentment. It is considered dishon- 
orable on the battlefield, or even in the prize-ring, not to hand- 
somely acknowledge the defeat of one's self or one's friend when 
he has been fairly overmatched by his antagonist. Having con- 
cluded this episode, I now revert to the peroration. 

The change, to which I have alluded, from the complaint with 
which Mr. Rantoul begins his paper, appears in comparing the 
language in which he couches it, with the grievance set forth in 
the concluding sentence. The sentence runs thus : — 

"The Institute will ill deserve the service of such men as have honored 
us in the past, if it shall ever fall upon a time when no voice is raised to 
resent a slur upon their memories." 

The " attack upon the authenticity " of the old frame is thus 
suddenly changed to a " slur upon the memories" of certain 
persons in the past. But the President fails to make it clear 
whether the persons he considers slurred were the forefathers of 
the colony or the Fathers of Salem ; and if the latter, whether 
the founders of the First Congregational Church and Society in 
Salem, or the gentlemen who were instrumental, actually or con- 
jecturally, in reerecting the old frame. 

He thus presents an aggravated form of fallacious argumen- 
tation, such as is denounced by all logicians under the general 
name of " fallacies of confusion," and specifically called by John 
Stuart Mill, the ignoratio elenchi, and by Archbishop Whateley, 
<' the fallacy of irrelevant conclusion." 

I cannot better express the nature of this fallacy than by 
adopting a sentence from "Elements of Logic" by the latter, 
n which he describes it thus: — 

" Various kinds of propositions are, according to the occasion, substituted 
for the one of which proof is required : sometimes the particular for the uni- 
versal ; sometimes a proposition with different terms ; and various are the 
contrivances employed to effect and to conceal this substitution, and to make 
the conclusion which the sophist has drawn, answer practically the same 
purpose as the one he ought to have established." 



12 

The equivocation in his last sentence is but one of the glaring 
instances of Mr. Rantoul's propensity to disregard the established 
canons of logic. We may not assume that his false reasoning is 
intentional, and so are forced, as the only alternative, to ascribe 
it to ignorance of the rules of logic, and utter inability to com- 
prehend the true nature and force of a syllogism. 

This, and other forms of fallacy in which his paper abounds, 
his contradictions, his jumbhng of sentences, and his confusion 
of dates, incidents, and persons, render his essay bewildering to 
the intelligent reader, though well enough adapted to make, 
upon the ignorant and unwary, the impressions he is willing they 
should retain with the same vagueness in which the correspond- 
ing ideas exist confusedly jumbled in his own mind. 

I ask you to follow me as I review some leading points in his 
paper with the purpose of comparing his statements with the 
actual facts, and of applying the principles of logic, which he 
habitually disregards, and the application of which is quite 
sufficient to subvert his laborious and pretentious effort. 

The committee appointed on motion of the late George D. 
Phippen, at a field-meeting in Saugus, July 7, 1859, to which 
Mr. Rantoul refers, consisted of five persons only ; viz., Charles 
Moses Endicott, Daniel Appleton White, Francis Peabody, 
Samuel Melancthon Worcester, and George Dean Phippen — 
and the committee as it stood in 1865 was not larger. Yet Mr. 
Rantoul repeatedly refers to the " seven investigators ; " which 
can only be accounted for by the supposition either that he has 
a superstitious regard for this magical number, or chooses it as 
better adapted to effect some ulterior purpose than is either five, 
which was the largest number on the committee at any one time, 
or ten, which should be his number if he includes everybody 
even supposed to be, in any degree, responsible for the com- 
mittees' reports according to his own theory ; not omitting Mr. 
Huntington, — who moved the vote of thanks when Mr. Upham 
read his memorial address upon Mr. Peabody, which contained 
the encomium on the latter for his efforts to save the old frame, 
— and Messrs. Goodell and Patch, neither of whom was ever in 
any sense a member of either committee. 

It may appear, as we proceed, how the magical number better 



subserved Mr. Rantoul's purpose than the decimal, although I 
do not think it necessary to account for all his vagaries of ratio- 
cination. His selection of this number as a part of his argu- 
ment, however, is so near akin to the defence of Dr. Slop, in 
"Tristram Shandy," of the number of the sacraments, that I am 
tempted to quote from his colloquy with the companions who 
with him listened to the reading of the Parson's sermon : — 

" ' Why, Sir, are there not Seven cardinal virtues ? — Seven mortal sins ? 

— Seven golden candlesticks ? — Seven heavens ? ' — ' 'Tis more than I 
know,' replied my uncle Toby. ' Are there not seven wonders of the world ? 

— Seven days of the creation ? — Seven planets ? — Seven plagues ? ' — 
That there are,' quoth my father, with much affected gravity." 

The functions of this committee, and the manner in which 
their appointment was introduced, appear in the following ex- 
tracts from the records of the Field Meeting referred to : — 

" George D. Phippen, of Salem, stated as a historical item of curious 
interest that tradition has long held that the First Meeting-House in Salem 
was not pulled down after its ceasing to be used in that capacity, but was 
removed, about 1639, to some spot near the road to South Danvers, and em- 
ployed for other purposes for some time afterward. Recently it has been 
asserted that the old building or its frame yet exists; that it stands on the 
land of Mr. David Nichols, at the foot of Gallows Hill, and is the same struc- 
ture that did service for some years under the name of Tompkin's Inn. It 
seems desirable that the correctness of these statements be tested, and the 
Institute should take action on the case for that purpose, particularly as Mr. 
Nichols had tendered the building to the Society for their disposal. He 
moved that a committee be raised to inquire into the facts of the case, and 
to report what action the Institute ought to take in reference thereto." 

The committee were nominatetl in the order in which I have 
given their names, and no change was ever made in their num- 
ber or personality except by the substitution, Dec. 28, 1863, of 
George Atkinson Ward for Mr. Endicott, whose death had 
occurred two weeks before, and the appointment of Hon. 
Charles W. Upham, Sept. 30, 1864, to fill the place left vacant 
by the death of Mr. Ward on the twenty-second of the same 
month. 

There is no intimation, either in the Secretary's records or the 
printed Proceedings, or elsewhere, of any other change in this 
committee except what may be inferred from the lists of sub- 



14 

scribers to the two reports printed, respectively, in the Histori- 
cal Collections for i860 and 1865, and which do not appear 
in the records of the Institute nor in any other official document. 
It is, therefore, needless to say that the use of the names of 
Goodell and Patch was wholly unauthorized. 

Now let us examine the credentials of the alleged several 
committee-men. To begin with ; from the Board as first con- 
stituted must be struck the names of Goodell and Patch, who, as 
I have said, were never appointed and never served. 

Next comes Judge White, whose name is not in the list of 
subscribers to either report, and of whom it must be said there 
is no evidence that he even knew of the appointment of such a 
committee or the existence of the old frame on David Nichols's 
premises. While it is true that, down to the time of his death, 
which occurred March 30, 1861, he had been nominally Presi- 
dent of the Institute, it is equally true that, owing to ill health 
and the infirmities of age, he had not presided at any meeting 
since April 22, 1858. His last appearance in his official capac- 
ity was on the evening of Saturday, Sept. 8, i860, when he 
introduced Professor Agassiz to the audience assembled in 
Mechanics Hall to witness the close of the Institute Fair, From 
the hearts as well as the minds of those of the survivors of the 
company present on that occasion, the impression can never be 
effaced of the devotion to duty which spurred this venerable 
gentleman to the physical effort of climbing the stairs and 
making the address, brief as it was, in which he, with tremulous 
voice, thanked all connected with the Fair who had generously 
exerted themselves in behalf of the Institute, and congratulated 
the audience " on the approbation an 1 sympathy " of the emi- 
nent naturalist who had honored them with his presence. 

His later years were spent in retirement ; and towards the 
end, what little strength remained after the performance of 
simple domestic and social duties he devoted to the completion 
of his book on New-England Congregationalism. In this work 
he was engaged to the last, insomuch that in his preface he 
authorizes the declaration that, as he approached the completion 
of his eighty-fifth year, he found himself so far prostrated by 
illness as to be compelled to entrust its preparation to friends 



15 

who could truly state his views. The preface was finished only 
eighteen days before his death. 

This literary work was his part in a controversy with Rev. 
Dr. Worcester upon the subject of the nature of the original 
covenant of the First Church, and how far it involved a profession 
of faith, and whether or not any stated declaration of doctrinal 
belief was required. It was probably on account of their joint 
interest in this historical question, and because Mr. Phippen was 
a member of Dr. Worcester's congregation, that the latter and 
Judge White were both nominated upon the committee. 

It is a point which Mr. Putnam has urged with force, that 
neither from his book nor elsewhere has a syllable been adduced 
to show Judge White's knowledge of the existence of this old 
frame or his interest in the project for its restoration. No hint 
of such a thing appears in the obituary sketch of him in the Pro- 
ceedings ; and it should be added that his pastor and biographer, 
Rev. George W. Briggs, who conferred with him frequently 
towards the close of his life, although he dwells upon the Judge's 
interest in, and relations to, the Institute, and his absorbing devo- 
tion to his latest literary work which I have described, does not 
mention the Old Meeting-house. The opinion that Judge White 
attached no importance to, even if he knew of, the tradition con- 
cerning the old frame is further corroborated by the record 
of proceedings in the Massachusetts Historical Society, of which 
he was for so long a valued and loyal member. At a meet- 
ing of that Society, in August, i860. Dr. Holmes, who had 
been recently in Salem, gave an account of a visit, probably 
in company with his brother-in-law, Mr. Upham, to an old 
house on " Witch Hill," to use his own words, built, according 
to tradition, of timber originally used in the frame of the 
first house of public worship erected at Salem. He also 
exhibited fragments of the clay-and-straw plastering of the 
building. The report of Dr. Holmes's account appeared in 
the printed serial of the Society, accessible to all members. A 
little more than two years later Rev. Dr. James Walker prepared 
for the Proceedings a memorial of Judge White, very carefully 
compiled from personal memoranda, including the Judge's diary 
and correspondence. In this memoir, filling nearly seventy 



i6 

octavo pages, there is not the sUghtest intimation that the Judge, 
who, confessedly, was deeply interested not only in the original 
covenant, but in everything else relating to the history of the 
First Church, had ever heard of the old structure, or that he, or 
his biographer, attached any importance to the rumor, which had 
so quickly subsided, concerning the discovery of the frame of 
the original meeting-house. Dr. Walker, though considerably 
younger than Judge White, was his intimate friend, and a man of 
profound and accurate knowledge of the early history of New 
England, who, for his eminent attainments, had been, through a 
period of nearly seven years, president of Harv^ard College. I 
find, in the index, references to his name in connection with the 
Society to more than forty pages of the Proceedings, exclusive 
of posthumous mention ; so that it is not likely that he could 
have been ignorant of the discussion, either before the Society 
or in Salem, of a topic so interesting as the discovery of the first 
house of worship in Massachusetts, which had sheltered the 
Church whose covenant his friend had so recently and lovingly 
expounded. 

Before we proceed to consider the part taken by another 
member of this committee let us again revert to Mr. Rantoul's 
peroration, the implied censures in which he pretends to utter 
in deference to the opinion and with the sanction of Judge 
White. If not intended to rebuke a " slur " on our forefathers 
these strictures apply, if they are applicable to anything, to an 
alleged " virulent attack," not only upon Judge White, but upon 
all others who were in a similar category. 

But what application would Mr. Rantoul have us make, in 
this controversy respecting the frame of David Nichols's old 
building, of Judge White's observation concerning the obligation 
to protect the good name of the Fathers of Salem? Are we to 
regard the Judge's words as a reproof of those who now doubt, 
or at any former time have doubted, the identity of this old 
frame with the whole or any portion of the First Meeting-house 
— as if, by their incredulity, these doubters had slurred the 
memory of the pious Founders of the Plantation ? Or must we 
deem them a rebuke of the temerity of those who have dared to 
question the inftillibility of the committee ? 



17 

It seems like wasting words to argue that the Judge had only 
in mind the immigrant Founders of Salem and their associates. 
Referring to a remark made by John Quincy Adams in 1843, in 
his discourse before the Massachusetts Historical Society on the 
New England Confederacy of 1643, uttered in vindication of the 
reputation of our forefathers from the slanders of their contem- 
poraries, which had been kept alive by tradition, Judge White 
pleaded for the same protection of the good name of the 
" Fathers of Saiem." 

Now, had any one professed to believe that Nichols's barn was a 
part of the old Quaker meeting-house, or a cow- shed, or had gone 
so far as to declare that it was only fit to be cut up into kindling- 
wood, how could his opinion be construed as a reflection upon 
the good name either of those who erected the First Meeting- 
house or of those who worshipped in it? Even if the frame 
were actually composed of materials that once formed a part 
of the structure in which Higginson, Skelton, and Roger Williams 
officiated, where is the logical connection between these old 
timbers and the piety and integrity of those Puritan preachers 
or of the members of their flock? Mr. Rantoul's connecting 
the " Fathers of Salem," as intended by Judge White, with the 
men who, in the service of the Institute, " have honored us in 
the past," — which, though obscurely stated, I am charitably 
willing to suppose to be his meaning, — is unintelligible except 
as bait to gudgeons. Does Mr. Rantoul write in this equivocal 
manner because he knows there are people who are capable of 
being stirred into passion by meaningless phrases and sounding 
words — ad captandum vulgiis ? Is Mr. Rantoul acting upon 
his knowledge of this peculiarity of the human mind, or are we 
to suppose that he really believes this inefilible twaddle to be the 
height of wisdom? 

Evidently he is not satisfied to pose solely as the vindicator 
of the forefathers, for fear that his labor may appear too far- 
fetched, and so, apparently for this reason, and at the same time 
in order to avail himself of the supposed irresistible authority 
of great names, he eulogizes certain leading members of the 
committee who have been distinguished in public life. Judge 
White, whose name, be it remembered, is not affixed to either 



iS 



n?jv". .1 ' '" "^ ily dnig? iato this miserable 

wringle, - ".adation. at the conclusion 

<rf wMcii, wtth an air of ioit>- indignation. Mr. Rantoul declares 
tfkit the Judge "•' wvKild cat off his right hand before he would 
havTf lent hinaselt. even by silent conni\-ance. to any course which 

; Institute or help the Insti- 
:_.. ....„--- :." and then proceeds to mix 

him up in the riticMa, apparently for the purpose 

otr: - . more enticing. 

>. : - = . ^ r ^^"hite never served on the 

coEamittee, ikh'^ ev^i, probably knew an3rtiung about the old bam 
" " " - "- - ' ' " '"> grave nearly or quite 

- -rrred tTx>m the rear of 
Boston street to the rear er Hall, the danger of his 

~ " ^ ' - ' " r '" '.:y in the 

&ice we are not to accnse Mr. Rantoul of intentional duphc- 

.:e fatuity 
in the art of reasoning ? 

>r- - — -: — - -"^■- - ..^ied. Although he 

alsr , r he is one of Mr. Ran- 

toai's - se^en m^"esDgators. Hls acQve connection with the 
Insdtnte began after Lis election as Preadent at the annual 
meeting in Mar. iS6i. — at which Mr. Tames Upton, Vice-Presi- 
dent, wai -r, — and it e- .ent. May lo, 
1S65, — :l_. „- . - :4. a- ^■''-- "^^ .. _-S usual inac- 
cmiacr; so that he wa ier of the reports 

a : neither have I 

rver read either of 

these reports. r had any part in framing them. 

_' -i: colors his career 
sing his eulogv as 
K>Qo«s: — 

T" r'y for L- - :-r con- 

: Mr. N: : ..ri ^hUe 

there axe many hving : - 5 10 ins [Mr. Hunting- 

ton's" - --■ — — -— -■=■ coaples him with 

ilr. - jralty of the city ; 



19 

and notices the fact that at the close of the memorial address 
upon his successor (after Mr. Huntington had retired from the 
presidency) he expressed "the grateful appreciation by the 
audience " of the great interest and value of the address, and 
moved its reference to the appropriate committee for publication ; 
which motion I seconded. In this address Mr. Upham, who 
gave it, and who was a thorough believer in the genuineness of 
the supposed " relic " behind Plummer Hall, was warm in his 
expressions of appreciation of Mr. Peabody's efforts for its pres- 
ervation. This — and the opportunity it afforded him to " get 
in " what, in his simplicity, he seems to think is a crushing blow 
at me, as com-icting me of duplicity, because, as \ace-president, 
I deemed it an act of courtesy to second Mr. Huntington's 
motion — is, I suppose, why Mr. Rantoul has taken the pains to 
quote so largely from Mr. Upham's address, and to refer to the 
complimentary motion. 

But note the syllogism in this wonderful argumentation : — 
The major premise : That Mr. Huntington was ever interested 
in the inquir>' about the identity of the so-called relic is 
onlv inferred from his making a motion expressing ap- 
preciation of an address by Mr. Upham before the In- 
stitute of which Mr. Huntington had formeriy been 
president, in which address the author professes his 
belief in the relic, and praises Mr. Peabody for his 
efforts to preserve it. 
N.B. — He made the motion because he beUeved in the relic. 
He believed in the relic because he made the motion. 
This is both petitio principii and arguing in a circle. 
The minor premise : Mr. Huntington was a prominent mem- 
ber of the Essex Bar, district attorney for several years, 
and clerk of the courts to the time cf his death. Be 
had also been mayor of Salem. 
The conclusion : Ergo, the genuineness of the relic is estab- 
lished, and all further debate upon it precluded ; and 
doubting its identity with a building not known to have 
been in existence for two hundred years, — but assumed 
to be of certain dimensions because those dimensions 
appear in the supposed reUc, — and calling the latter an 
imposture, is a \-irulent attack on its authenticity. 



20 

Shade of Aristotle ! Is this an emanation from a historical and 
scientific society in the nineteenth century, or from an insane 
asylum, or school for the feeble-minded? 

One unfamiliar with Mr. Rantoul's peculiarities might nat- 
urally inquire, why, when he was grandiloquently recounting the 
achievements and virtues of Judge White and Mr. Huntington, 
and the public positions held by them, and others whom I am 
yet to consider, he studiously omitted to mention the Rev. Dr. 
Worcester, who was elected a member of the first committee ? 
Surely, he was better entitled to notice, one would think, than 
others not of the committee. Though not a native of Salem he 
had resided here from so tender an age, that he could remem- 
ber no earlier home. For some years professor of rhetoric and 
oratory at Amherst College, he succeeded his father as pastor 
of the Tabernacle church and congregation — an office which 
had been held by father and son, with an intermission of about 
twelve years, from 1803. As for the fame of the old edifice in 
which they ministered, modelled after, and named for, Whitefield's 
famous chapel in London, and framed from the masts and spars 
of vessels of Revolutionary fame, I doubt if we have any other 
structure which, in future years, will have so wide a reputation 
or that is more likely to redound to the glory of Salem. Eighty- 
two years ago, four pioneer Christian missionaries were ordained 
within its walls, and the event celebrated by the solemn com- 
munion of five hundred church-members at the sacramental 
table. Since that day hundreds of devoted men and women, 
under the patronage of the American Board of Commissioners 
for Foreign Missions, have gone forth to heathen lands to pro- 
claim the Christian evangel ; until now, in the verse of good 
Bishop Heber, attuned to the lively measures of the old sailors' 
song, " 'Twas while the seas were roaring," is sung in a hundred 
dialects, all over the world, the glorious realization of the pro- 
phetic resolve to persevere, — 

"Till earth's remotest nation has learned Messiah's name." 

However we may dissent from the specific doctrines which 
they went forth to promulgate, who will have the hardihood to 
deny that this great work, to which both the Worcesters, father 



21 

and son, were all their lives devoted, is not one of the grandest 
exhibitions of exalted altruism that the world has ever seen? 

I predict, although none of this generation may witness it, 
that pilgrims of all races and tongues from the East and the 
West and the Islands of the Sea will come to view the spot where 
was inaugurated the movement which lifted their benighted 
ancestors into the light and joy of Christian civilization. 

Why, then, was Dr. Worcester forgotten? It could not be 
because his religious vievvs antagonized those of the Fathers, and 
thus " slurred their memories," for he held strictly to the primitive 
doctrines from which the brethren of the First Church had 
receded — the doctrines which, announced by Calvin, and traced 
through Augustine to St. Paul, had been received by the great 
Puritan Assembly at Westminster, in the words of St. Jude, as 
" the fiiith which was once delivered unto the Saints." The pro- 
fession of faith of this Assembly of Divines, incorporated in 
their " Shorter Catechism," and bound up with the Cambridge 
platform of discipline, was the rock upon which the present 
Tabernacle Church was founded. 

Moreover, Dr. Worcester had contributed quite as much to 
the preservation and exaltation of the " relic " as had either his 
theological antagonist Judge White, or his parishioner Major 
Huntington — which was, nothing at all. I can discover in Mr. 
Rantoul's eulogies of these gentlemen no other peculiar merit 
entitling them to preference except that they were both mem- 
bers of the Essex Bar and that the latter had been " mayor of 
Salem;" — both of which qualifications Mr. Rantoul also pos- 
sesses. 

Not to antici])ate what I have to say specially of Mr. Upham, 
I will take this opportunity to observe that his having been 
" mayor of the city " is particularly enumerated among his quali- 
fications for pronoimcing, ex cathedra, on the historical questions 
involved in ascertaining the relation which Mr. Nichols's old 
barn bore to the First Meeting-house. To this I may as well 
reply, once for all, that I cannot see that his assumption is in- 
dubitable. If we look back through sixty years of our municipal 
history we have abundant proof that it is possible for a small 
politician to be foisted into the mayoralty by his heelers and 



22 

retainers looking for a job, or for the crumbs that fall from the 
municipal table. Their candidate may have masqueraded in the 
City Hall as preeminently the Father of the City, blocking every 
enterprise for the city's improvement, and squandering the peo- 
ple's money, and, after all, show himself such an ass as to be 
unable to perceive or state accurately facts of common observa- 
tion, or to reason consecutively. 

Having thus excluded Messrs. Patch and Goodell, who were 
not of the original committee of five, and Messrs. White and 
Worcester, who zoere, there remain only three responsible mem- 
bers : Messrs. Endicott^ Peabody, and Phippen ; but as tnere is 
reason to believe that Mr. Upham, — who was not appointed upon 
the committee until Sept. 30, 1864, when he succeeded Mr. Ward, 
who, in turn, had taken the place of Mr. Endicott, — had been in 
communication with the committee from the first, it is only fair 
to allow Mr. Rantoul the benefit of four of these " investigators." 
It is certain, however, that at no time after 1863 were there more 
than these four serving on the committee ; namely, Messrs. Pea- 
body, Phippen, Ward, and Upham ; and that, before that date, 
there was the same number, — Mr. Endicott holding the place 
filled, later, by Mr. Ward. No one except the mechanics em- 
ployed in taking down, removing, and reerecting the building, 
is known to have been admitted to their counsels ; no one else 
appears to have been a party to their negotiations with Mr. 
Nichols ; and no one else contributed to the expense of the 
undertaking. Yet Mr. Rantoul persistently ascribes this whole 
business to the mysterious "seven investigators," and, in face of 
the declarations of Mr. Phippen, at Saugus, in 1859, that Mr. 
Nichols "had te7idered the building to the Society, for their dis- 
posal;'' and of Mr. Upham, which he has quoted, that "Mr. 
Nichols presented the building,''' that Colonel Peabody " offered 
to assume the entire expense of the operation of removal and 
reconstruction," and that " the building may well be regarded as 
his monument;''' and Mr. Ward's declaration in 1863, that, "by 
the munificence of one of our members it will soon be placed in the 
grounds of Plummer Hall ; " — he repeats the statement that the 
committee, or the mystical "seven," — it is hard to determine 
which, even if he recognizes any distinction, "bought the frame 



23 



.../ removal U at their or.n expense ^ ^.^ that " -/'meaning 
I suppose, the Institute, " had acquired the frame tn May, 1864, 
from David Nichols f '' Tr^i.toff 

In his jumping from four to seven he nvals Sir John Falstaff 
in the dialogue in which he asseverates to Prince Henry, - 

..These four came all a-front, and mainly thrust at me. I made me 
no more ado, but took all their seven points in my target, thus. 

Prince Henry. Seven? Why, there were but four, even now. 

Falstaff. Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else. 
^nn^ Henry. IVythee, let him alone; we shall have more anon. 
The first group of four to which the number of " investi- 
gators " has been thus reduced, or, perhaps, I should say, of 
three -since Mr. Phippen,- whom Mr. Rantoul ignores - 
bdng the successor of Mr. Endicott as cashier of a bank m wh.ch 
Mr Peabody was interested, may be counted with the latter as ..., 
on 'the presumption that, from their relations, and therr probably 
frequent interchange of views, they came to agree, substantia ly,- 
we?e practically united in their sentimems. It cannot be dem d 
That they enthLastically concurred in the opinion that the old 
rame was a part of the Old Meeting-house. Their faith, as wel as 
that of Mr. Ward, was so strong that they gave little or no heed 
to the difficulties, improbabilities, and seeming impossibilities 
which deterred others from readily acceding to their conclusions. 
Mr. Upham, the youngest of these, was a man of learning, 
of brilliant parts, and fertile imagination. He had been pastor 
of the First Church for twenty years, from 1824, either as col- 
league of Rev. Dr. Prince, or alone ; and then retired on account 
of tie loss of his voice. Subsequently, at different times, he edUed 
the " Christian Review " and the '' Christian Register -the latter 
in 1 84^-6. Four years before he gave up preaching he had got a 
taste of political life, to which he was decidedly inclined by 
serving one year in the House of Representatives, and after this, 
at six different times through a period of eleven years, he was a 
member of one or the other branch of the State Legislature ; and 
in i8s7 and 1858 he had served as president of the Senate. 
From 1853 to 1855 he had been a member of Congress, and m 
the former year also a delegate to the Constitutional Convention 



24 

of Massachusetts. We must not omit to repeat what, in Mr. Ran- 
toul's judgment, appears to have been very important evidence 
of his ability, that in 1852 he was mayor of Salem. Though not 
a native of this State he was descended from the best Massa- 
chusetts stock, and was a most thorough-going republican. He 
not only detested the shams of hereditary aristocracy, but was 
an ardent admirer of the great heroes of the Puritan Common- 
wealths of England, — Old and New. 

As might naturally be expected, therefore, we find him the 
biographer of Hugh Peters, the regicide and one of his pred- 
ecessors in the pulpit of the First Church. He was also a charming 
delineator of many other characters and events in the history of 
the old town of which the First Church was the centre. His 
" History of the Salem Witchcraft " is conceded to be the fullest 
and most instructive treatment of that subject which has yet 
appeared. As a writer and thinker, however, he excelled in 
polemics rather than in exact narrative ; and a critical observer 
cannot fail to notice that in his " History " his exuberant fancy 
is apt to lead him astray except when checked by the conservative, 
careful, and thoroughly conscientious guidance of his accom- 
plished but too modest son, to whom our city and State are so 
much indebted for sound expositions of our earliest history. I 
make this criticism not to impeach Mr. Upham's sincerity, for 
there never was a writer more anxious to discover and reveal 
the truth of history ; and it is wholly or chiefly in his interpre- 
tation and coloring of indisputable facts that he invites dissent ; 
and then always with such evident willingness to be corrected 
in any error as sometimes to do himself injustice. For instance, 
in his memorable "Reply" — an essay which may be ranked 
among the finest specimens of polemical writing in the English 
language — to the strictures which Poole had made in the 
" North American Review " on his history of the witchcraft, Mr. 
Upham voluntarily points out a supposed erroneous statement in 
his own book which he believed had been overlooked by his 
critic ; whereas, in point of fact, he had been entirely right — 
his later construction being based upon a wrong conjecture as 
to the purport of a signature, made by one person in his own 
name for another who was the ostensible author. 



25 

Mr. Upham's conciliatory disposition, inclining him to ac- 
quiesce in the opinions of others with ardor when those opinions 
coincide with ideas formed in his vivid imagination, and the 
ease with which he habitually brushed aside prosy details that 
seemed to conflict with those ideas, and his tendency to look 
for, and to magnify the importance of, the slightest corroborating 
circumstances ; above all, his unsuspecting, though not unguarded, 
credulity in regard to all matters which seemed to confirm his 
preconceptions founded on enthusiastic study of the past — 
better fitted him for an advocate than a judge on the question 
which his companions were considering, and on which they were 
equally influenced by predilection and imagination. 

Colonel Peabody was about one year older than Mr. Upham, 
and, undoubtedly, as was probably the case with Major Hunting- 
ton, had not spent an hour of his life in original historical 
research, or in the critical comparison of historical data ; but as 
one of the so-called "investigators," he filled a place for which 
he was better fitted. From early manhood he had interested 
himself in various branches of natural philosophy, in either of 
which, had he been pressed by necessity, he could unquestion- 
ably have achieved eminence. In chemistry, electricity, optics 
— and in mechanics as applied to the utilizing of wind-power ; 
to improvements in the organ and in machinery for the spinning 
and weaving of jute, etc., he labored assiduously; and employed 
skilled assistants, who found in him a generous patron. While 
other sons of wealthy merchants were spending their income in 
luxury or amusement, he was casting about for some way of en- 
larging the list and ensuring the excellence of the manufactures 
of Salem ; and to him we are indebted for the manutacture of 
white lead, for the purity of which Salem has long had an 
enviable reputation. But the accomplishment which seemed 
best to fit him for a place among the " investigators " was his 
taste for, and his knowledge of, architecture. To him, therefore, 
we may believe, was left the demonstration of the internal evi- 
dence which Mr. Nichols's barn presented of correspondence 
with the ideal which his companions imagined, or formed from 
their researches in ancient records and the literature of the past, 
regarding the actual proportions of the Old Meeting-house. I 



26 

have seen no evidence that he ever undenook to defend the 

■ of the reUc upon anv other ground. I think there 

:bc that he relied wholly upon his kinsman, Mr. 

Eladioott, and his mach- respected friend, Mr. Upham, for his 

first •" ' " : " — ressionsv and was finally carried away by the 

irres-: ^sal of his old-time companion. Ward, after 

the latter .and in the restoration, upon his return 

to S3 - 

E" "i Ward are characters pleasant to remember. 

Bcwn uic s-icae year ( 1793) they were in their early manhood 

when tiie " Wizard of the North," having baffled the British 

fMiamumcs as to his identity, had, by the force of his genius, 

: don of the English-speaking world as "The 

" Sir Tristram," " The Lay of the Last 

larmicMi," " The Lady of the Lake," " The 

-1 " Rokeby " had appeared, at not 

1 _ - - of ten years following his earUer 

wcKks wiuch had given piomise of his future fame. Then, in 

- ' " -'y," " Guy Maimering," " Tales 

.' and " Ivanhoe," and forty 
ottier ftayyim as tram his fertile brain. The aspiriog 

. - — .- : to the wand of the "Wizard," 

drank in the spirit of chivalry 

- ■- lorei'er spoued tnem for a 5 the dignity, simplic- 

.-ii veraciry of the passion^.-, .-.^^z of History. With 

. ir was omru irnoium pro maznifico ; and they never 

. . -.he " Wizard " threw 

.,..: .„. . ^,___:: -:.- .. . _ . :ints of Rob Roy Mac- 

GrcsrOT". by striiyping them of their kilts, nor of doubting the 

' mediaeval knights 

. . . . - , rals he created. 

To hint to a, of Salem boeage — who thus looked 

a sort <■.''■ ' — that a veri- 

,/emor£\ .pretentiously 

iv i^ dnty as a henDeiy car cowfaoase <m the premises of a 

' - ' - like whispering to a 

.:rth was immured in 
a " : : up in a castle tower and guarded 



27 

The attempt to disabuse these chivalrous gentlemen of their 
prepossessions would have been as vain as to try to persuade 
Don Quixote that his Dulcinea del Toboso was only the country 
wench Aldonza Lorenzo, and not Dulcinea of the illustrious 
family de la Mancha. 

And so it was that, after my last protest in 1864, to which I 
shall refer again, Mr. Ward, the genial, generous lover of his 
Puritan ancestry and his ancestral Salem, walking up Essex 
street on his way home from the Institute, broke out in 
reproaches of my conduct in refusing to approve the committee's 
report. I did not hear him, but there are those living who did. 
Dear soul ! I most heartily forgive his honest indignation, for 
the sake of his appreciation of so much that was good and 
worthy of perpetual remembrance, and for his attachment to 
this old town, the home and sepulchre of his forefathers. 

Mr. Endicott was of the same temperament as his associate, 
Ward. He, however, had had a more varied experience of life, 
and had endured greater vicissitudes. On the sea, as a navi- 
gator, he had encountered the hurricane and the burning blaze 
of tropic calms. On the coasts of Sumatra, which he faithfully 
charted for the guidance of other navigators, he had successfully 
braved the relentless fury of Malay pirates and formed lifelong 
friendships with Indian merchants and nijahs, and, in his mature 
age, having achieved the highest meed of a seafaring life, he had 
retired to the quiet of the banking-house. 

Descended from, and bearing the surname of, the governor 
of the old plantation of Naumkeag, he, and Ward — who was 
descended from Capt. George Curwen, first in the long line of 
Salem's merchant princes, and whose face, still looking grimly 
from the canvas dimmed by the deepening shadows of two 
centuries, bears a marked resemblance to the more genial 
countenance of his descendant, — had many traits in common. 
Allied to leading families of Essex County and " The Bay," and 
inquisitive as to the past, both yielded to the temptation to write 
much concerning the genealogies of Salem families and the 
traditions of the town ; and doubtless in their wanderings both 
had dragged "at each remove a lengthening chain," as did Gold- 
smith's Traveller in his rovings from his loved Auburn. Yet 



28 

Ward, too apt to rely upon his memory, sometimes made mis- 
takes which were unpardonable in a professed writer of history. 
Of one of these Mr. Rantoul, I remember, once convicted him, 
but made another, equally bad, in the attempt. Mr. Endicott 
h IS fastened still another myth upon us, in his description of the 
" Old Planter's House," which has continued so long as to have 
become inveterate ; so that we, I fear, have reason to apprehend 
another explosion when some fastidious stickler for truth shall 
seriously take the Institute to task for its seeming approval of 
this misnomer of the dwelling-house, not brought from Cape 
Ann, but, "about 1675," built and occupied by Daniel Epes — 
Salem's first famous schoolmaster. 

I think I have said enough to caution you not to regard the 
mere opinions of either of these "investigators," as conclusive 
of the facts, and as sufficient justification of Mr. Rantoul's 
supposition that they preclude all further investigation. Even 
he, after all his show of indignation at the " slur " cast upon 
these men, or upon somebody or so me tin 11 1^ else, by simply point- 
ing out their misstatements of fact and refuting their arguments, 
devotes the last four or five pages of the type- written copy of 
his address to an argument, in his own peculiar style, to be either 
substituted for, or to serve as a supplement to, theirs. I fail, 
however, to see that he has bettered the case by this effort. He 
has not even offered an acceptable apology for attempting to do 
what he declared, as long ago as last May, had already been so 
sufficiently done by his seven " investigators " that " f/ie question 
of authenticity must now be considered closed so far as such a 
question can bey 

I aver that the charge that there was any conscious mis- 
representation in the reports, was never made or insinuated. No 
suspicion of such a thing was ever entertained by anybody. It 
is entirely without foundation ; and unworthy to be credited, 
much less published, by any fair-minded person of ordinary in- 
telligence. Having yielded to the dominant idea of the genuine- 
ness of the " relic," these gentlemen readily discovered satisfactory 
explanations of all incongruities, and a pretext for taking such 
liberties, in reerecting the frame, as they deemed necessary to 
bring it to its original form and dimensions. Having concluded. 



29 

— erroneously as I contend, — that the twelve feet given as the 
length of the chimney was the measure of its height, they made 
the posts and studding conform to this measurement, on the sup- 
position that enough had rotted off from the foot of each to de- 
mand this addition. Hence they made the splicings concerning 
which, in their second report, the " committee " naively say " the 
wooden posts, so far as they remain to us, have been extended to 
meet the sills by the addition of timber y All this is perfectly 
consistent with honesty, in minds unconsciously influenced by 
an invincible dominant idea. 

So far from being willing to connive at a fraud, — so sincere 
were these gentlemen in their professions of belief in the gen- 
uineness of the " relic," and so confident of the ultimate approval 
of the whole community, that I have no doubt either of them 
would have seen no incongruity in maintaining their ground with 
vigor and at the same time most heartily subscribing to the 
notable words of Mr. Uphara, in his prefatory note to his 
"Reply" to Poole, already mentioned that, " the spirited discus- 
sion, by earnest scholars, of special questions, although occa- 
sionally assuming the aspect of controversy, will be not only 
tolerated but welcotned by liberal minds y These are words 
worthy to be blazoned in letters of gold upon the walls of every 
historical society deserving the name. Vet how different from 
the narrow, bitter spirit which would crush, by an arbitrary 
closure, a young and promising student of history, for taking 
the Hberty to dissent from what he deemed an egregious error 
to which the Society that he had justly regarded with some- 
thing like filial pride and reverence stood injudiciously com- 
mitted ! 

Now, having led you along to a critical period in the history 
of the committee of investigation, and described its personnel, 
as faithfully as I am able to at this distance of time — in doing 
which I have reduced Mr. Rantoul's magical number of seven, 
to four, at most — and, having shown that if Mr. Rantoul includes 
all the persons he has indicated as having had to do with the 
committee's business, he should make the number ten, I take 
the liberty to call his attention to a famous precedent for his jug- 
gling with numbers, less likely to disturb his smug complacency 



30 

than the comparison with the rude self-contradiction of Sir 
John Falstaff. It is this : In a note to the account in Plu- 
tarch's Morals, given by Diodes to Nicharchus, of the Banquet 
of the " Seven Wise Men," the very learned Professor Goodwin 
of Harvard, shows, from the text, that Plutarch counted Anar- 
charsis among the Seven, and left out Periander, who gave the 
feast. But for the sagacity of this American scholar we might 
never have known how possible it is, even for the wisest, to make 
such an error of computation, and in so plausible a manner as 
that it should have misled the world from the time the Sage of 
Chceronea first pubUshed his comparison of the heroes of Greece 
and Rome, if not from the days of Solon. And the precedent 
is made still more striking by the testimony of Diodes that there 
were not merely seven at that feast, but more than double the 
number ; which is a surplus greater, by four at least, than the 
enumeration which Mr. Rantoul makes, and forgets, of persons 
concerned in the doings of the "committee." 

Mr. Rantoul begins his respects to me in connection with 
Judge White and Mr. Huntington, by calling me " the third 
member of the Essex Bar, on the committee." 

Bear in mind that he has not shown that either of the three 
served upon the committee, or had any voice or part in its 
doings, or that Mr. Huntington or I was a member, save what 
he infers from the circumstance that my name, ostensibly in 
that capacity, is affixed to the two printed reports. 

Of myself, though a topic the discussion of which I never 
approach without extreme reluctance, I am thus constrained to 
say something. 

Since I appear to be the central figure in the target against 
which Mr. Rantoul, with more or less directness shoots his 
arrows, I am, in a manner, compelled to accept his impUed 
challenge or invitation, where, besides the reference to me above 
mentioned, he in two other places, respectively, refers to me as 
" the last survivor'" of his " group " of " investigators," and says 
that " he " [meaning me] "is still able to speak for himself." 
It gratifies me to have an opportunity to accept his invitation 
to demonstrate that possibly there is one thing upon which we 
do not disagree, although the proof of this may not be so agree- 
able to him. 



^I 



Mr. Rantoul informs the public that I am " a native of Salem," 
and that in i860 I was ''an af/endanf of the First Church,'' 
younger than my two companions of the Bar, " and [on these 
accounts presumably] perhaps more likely to be swept away by 
the enthusiasm of the moment than either of his [meaning my] 

elders y 

This is a fine illustration of the manner in which Mr. Rantoul 
invents facts and makes erroneous deductions. As to the place 
of my nativity, it is hardly reasonable to suppose that Mr. Ran- 
toul possesses such superior means of information as to be able 
to invalidate my own recollection, and disprove the tradition in 
my family, that I was born in Cambridgeport, and came to 
Salem in 1 83 7 . As for my own testimony, although corroborated 
by events which I undoubtedly remember, I state it with diffidence, 
since, although present at the time, and perhaps the most impor- 
tant person in the bed-chamber, I was too young to receive any 
distinct impression of the year, the month, and the day of an 
occurrence of which, concededly, the midwife is a better witness. 
I remember, however, that some forty- five years ago, in a cause 
before a judge so infamously grotesque in his rulings that the 
old Court of Common Pleas, it is said, was abolished to get rid 
of him, I was not allowed to ask a witness her age, for the reason 
that she was incompetent and her testimony inadmissible ; and 
that when I carried up my exceptions to the Supreme Judicial 
Court this decision was incontinently overruled. Since that time, 
as had previously been the rule in other judicatories, the testi- 
mony of a person as to the time and place of his birth has been 
considered competent in law, in this Commonwealth, at least. 

It is true, as Mr. Rantoul says, that, in i860, 1 was an attend- 
ant on public worship at the First Church, and a pretty regular 
one, I admit; but on looking at the date of the deed of my 
pew, I find it Sept. 17, 1859.; which proves to me that my 
connection with that Society began two months and ten days 
after the committee to inquire into the tradition respecting 
David Nichols's barn had been appointed, at a field- meeting in 
Saugus, and a litde more than seven months before that com- 
mittee made their report, on neither of which occasions was I 
present, and the knowledge of which first came to me long 



32 

afterward. It would seem, therefore, that my relations to the 
First religious congregation in Salem can hardly be considered 
a circumstance of any importance as affecting my conduct or 
predilections in regard to the supposed relic of the Old Meeting- 
house, or upon any other subject. Besides, it must be remem- 
bered, I repeat, that I was not a member of that committee ; nor 
was I cognizant of their doings and determinations until the 
report was brought into Plummer Hall, written out in some 
form, ready to be presented for action thereupon by the 
Institute. 

I beg you not to be misled by what you may have read in the 
newspapers as to the date of that report. In the Salem News of 
October twenty-fourth you have probably read the reply of Mr. 
Winfield Scott Nevins, purporting to refute the declaration of 
Mr. Eben Putnam, that I was not an officer nor a member of any 
committee of the Institute at the date of the volume of its " His- 
torical Collections " in which that report was published ; and his 
counter declaration, that the records of the Institute for 1861 
show that I 7aas then '■'■a member and chairman of the publica- 
tion committee^ Now, the record referred to by Mr. Nevins 
does not support his contention ; for Mr. Putnam's declaration, 
which is literally true, related to the year i860, while Mr. 
Nevins's reference is to the year 1861, a year later than the date 
of the rendering and publication of the report. I have always 
respected Mr. Nevins for his honorable character as well as for 
his literary ability. Indeed, I have formed a high idea of the 
exceptional intelligence and fairness of our Salem journalists ; 
particularly those who have long contributed to the Boston 
papers, and I would not willingly believe that either of them 
could be such an infamous scoundrel as intentionally to attempt 
to deceive the public by such a contemptible trick, as this sub- 
stitution of one year for another, in order to confound and refute 
an honest antagonist. I have no doubt that when Mr. Nevins's 
attention is called to this, he will promptly retract his refutation 
of Mr. Putnam as publicly and explicitly as he made it. 

As if to impress the public with the duty of giving implicit 
credence to newspaper reports, and thus to prepare them to 
swallow such a dose as I have just called attention to (and some 



33 

others, even more remarkable, upon which he reUes to prove his 
assertions against me, which I shall expose before 1 conclude), 
Mr. Rantoul is reported, in the News of January second, as 
going out of his way, on the occasion of hanging tlie portrait of 
a historical writer, to eulogize what he calls this " ephemeral 
literature," in some paragraphs of fulsome twaddle on " News- 
papers and History " in which, among other statements equally 
absurd, he declares that the daily press furnishes " a;/ indispens- 
able guide to the period covered by its work,'' and that it "is the 
1-ecord which nobody else can falsify y 

Of course, one who places so high an estimate upon the 
newspaper, as an " indispensable guide " and an unimpeachable 
authority, reads the daily papers carefully, and so, presumably, 
Mr. Rantoul must have read attentively Mr. Nevins's communi- . 
cation ; yet I have never heard of his contradicting the false 
statements and inferences in that article, either publiclv or i)ri- 
vately. More than this : I deem it proper to say here that I 
have satisfactory evidence that Mr. Nevins ivent to the Institute 
rooms for his material for that article. It would be interesting 
to note the developments of an inquiry as to who, if anybody, 
at the Institute, set him astray on his supposed facts. 

Having thus fixed the time of the beginning of my connection 
with the First Congregational Society, I may as well proceed to 
give the details of my connection with the Institute, regarding 
which, I have said, Mr. Putnam told the truth when he declared 
that, in i860, I was neither an officer nor a committee-man. 

Indeed, I think there is no record evidence of my attending 
any evening meeting or field-meeting — and this accords with my 
recollection — before April 26, i860, when the rumor of a prop- 
osition to appropriate money from the treasury of the Institute 
for the purchase of David Nichols's old barn, induced me to at- 
tend, in order to hear what reasons could be given for such an 
expenditure. The failure of this project I have sufficiently de- 
scribed ; but I have not explicitly stated, as I do now, that at 
that meeting it was chiefly my opposition to the appropriation 
which led to the recommitment of the report ; and in the debate 
which then took place between Mr. Peabody and me, which Mr. 
Rantoul briefly mentions, the two debaters were not on the same 



34 

side of the question. The committee, as I have said, excused 
themselves from pressing the matter at the next meeting (May 
third) on the ground that they were unprepared. Mr. Rantoul 
passes over the entries in the Secretary's manuscript record as if 
they were of no consequence. They do not all appear in the 
printed Proceedings, from which he prefers to quote, and perhaps 
the manifest errors and omissions of the printed series are con- 
doned by him because the omission of certain entries saves him 
the necessity of explaining some things which indicate the possibil- 
ity that I was not so entirely " in harmony with the committee " 
as he would have you believe. 

My official participation in the meetings of the Institute dates 
from Feb. 4, 1861, when, for the first time, upon nomination by 
the Secretary, in the absence of the invalid President and the 
three vice-presidents I presided for that evening. The circum- 
stances were as follows : — 

I have mentioned that a Fair was held in September, i860, for 
the benefit of the Institute. This was managed by a circle of 
prominent ladies of Salem, Mrs. John Lewis Russell presiding. 
Mrs. Russell had been a schoolma'am, and had retained some of 
the dictatorial manners which prevailed in school discipline 
among members of her profession in her day. There was a rule 
forbidding raffling at the Fair ; and Mrs. Russell, suspecting that 
the great success of one of the lady managers indisposing of the 
wares for sale at her table was owing to some underhanded resort 
to a game of chance, openly accused that innocent and most 
estimable lady with complicity in this forbidden business, and 
refused to accept her denial. The " tempest in a teapot " that 
ensued resulted in much chronic hard feeling, and a coolness on 
the part of Mr. Russell towards the active officers of the Institute. 

The flame thus kindled was intensified by another un- 
fortunate circumstance. A small-quarto record of the Fair 
was printed and sold for the benefit of the Institute. This 
publication, called the " Weal-Reaf," was conducted by a staff 
of editors — how many I do not know ; but the chief was Mr. 
Rantoul, who, as is his habit in all such things, eventually 
monopolized the business, and was addressed, and responded, as 
*' Mr. Editor." Besides his own contributions of harmless 
puns and conundrums — and a variety of essays by others. 



35 

some of them of rare beauty — he admitted a poem by Mr. 
Russell entitled, " The Garden of the Sea," in which one of the 
verses, and perhaps others, offended the critical sense of the 
Editor. This verse, as I remember, was, — 

" The Tubularias 

Are clustered, crystal cells, 
Within whose lengthened, narrow walls 
The roseate floret dwells." 

I confess I can hardly blame the Editor for challenging the 
credentials of these verses (of which the one I have given is a 
fair sample) as a fresh importation from Helicon. His attempt, 
however, to assume the role of the Stagyrite and to suggest im- 
provements, stirred the ire of Mr. Russell, and, aggravated by 
the outcome of the unhappy contest which his wife had started, 
and in which she had incurred more than a modicum of cen- 
sure, he pettishly declined to preside at, or even to attend, the 
evening meetings and field-meetings of the Institute, which, as 
senior vice-president, he had usually conducted. 

There were but two other vice-presidents — Mr. James Upton, 
and our late lamented secretary, Henry Mason Brooks. As 
these gentlemen could not conveniently be present at all the 
regular meetings, I was very glad to come to the assistance of 
our good friend and mentor. Dr. Wheatland ; and so, until the 
next annual meeting, I was chosen to preside, pro tempore, not 
only at the meeting I have mentioned, but also at the meetings 
of February eighteenth and March fourth and eighteenth, alter- 
nating with Mr. Brooks. 

At the annual meeting, on the eighth of May, 1861, when 
Vice-President Upton assumed the chair, I was chosen to my 
first office, — Chairman of the Committee on Publication. 

This was a year later than the meeting at which the first com- 
mittee's report on David Nichols's barn was disposed of as I have 
heretofore stated. Of course, not being present at the annual 
meeting in i860, I had no knowledge of the form of the report, 
nor whether or not it purported to be signed by anybody. Had 
I known that my name was affixed thereto you may rest assured 
there would have been what Mr. Rantoul calls, a " collision." 



36 

The report appeared in the June number of the " Historical 
Collections," for i860. 

As I was not on the Publication Committee chosen that year 
nor on the committee of the year before, I had no opportunity 
to insist upon its being made to conform to the fact, and I 
never saw the report until it was published in the third volume of 
the Collections, which made its appearance more than a year 
later. By that time, it was generally thought the whole scheme 
was dead. The old frame was seldom referred to, and then, 
usually, with derision. The newspapers were silent about it. 
It was not mentioned at the Institute, nor in the " VVeal-Reaf ; " 
nor, for years after, was it mentioned in our publications, nor 
alluded to in our prospectuses nor in descriptive pamphlets of 
the Institute, its possessions and lists of attractions. Whatever 
indignation I might have felt at the unauthorized use of my 
name, which, as I have said, I was not aware of until too late to 
justify me in making, as Dr. Wheatland said to Buffum, " a fuss 
about it," it passed out of my mind. 

Thus forgotten, and apparently abandoned, the old barn or 
cowhouse remained, soaked by the rains and shaken by the 
winds of summer, and bearing up its burden of snow and its 
festoons of icicles in the winter. 

Meanwhile the great War of the Rebellion had broken out 
and there were graver topics to employ the thoughts of every 
patriot, from the time of the firing on Fort Sumter, — when we 
organized a citizens' relief committee, with a voluntarily contrib- 
uted Fund of $15,000, independent of a like amount voted 
by the City Council. I was made secretary of the committee 
and so continued throughout the war. Mr. Rantoul took my 
records years ago to write up the history of that great benevo- 
lence, but I have not seen the result of his study of them, nor 
the records themselves since. Then, when recruiting began, I 
became chairman of the recruiting committee formed to see that 
our volunteers, substitutes, and drafted men were properly pro- 
tected in their rights, and those dependent upon them cared for. 
These labors, added to my duties as Register of Probate and 
Insolvency, — the most laborious public service in the County, 
— were quite enough to fill up my time, without my starting a 
crusade to avenge a personal grievance. 



n 

Now, to go back to the meeting, in which, as Mr. Rantoul is 
forced to admit, the report was " discussed by Messrs. Francis 
Peabody, A. C. Goodell, Jr., and others," for the purpose of 
explaining to you what the objections were that were then made 
to the report. The practical objection was to the expenditure 
of money, as I have stated. But, of course, no such objection 
would have been made if the committee had clearly identified 
the old barn with the Meeting-house. Hence, later, when an 
offer was made to exempt the Institute from all pecuniary 
liability, the force of the opposition was greatly weakened — since 
it narrowed the contention down to a sentimental basis rather 
than a practical ; and the possibility of saving the Institute from 
derisive criticism was not much considered. It was thought, as 
our experience of the effect of the lapse of time seemed to have 
proved, that nothing serious need be apprehended, even if the 
zealous advocates of the project were indulged in their hobby, 
which miglit be turned to practical advantage to the Institute by 
the much needed additional room it would furnish. This may 
explain why little opposition was made to the final work of the 
committee. 

My main difficulty in accepting the committee's report was 
three-fold : First, granting all they fountl in regard to the 
tradition, and all they reported about the dimensions of the barn, 
they had not made out a case, for the want of positive evidence 
as to the actual size, shape and materials of the Old Meeting- 
house. This itself was decisive. Second, that the tradition on 
which they relied may as well have related to the first Quaker 
meeting-house; and, ^//a//v, that the building itself did not com- 
pare in size with other meeting-houses of that period with no 
larger congregations. Moreover, the frame was not entirely of 
oak, as the frame of the Meeting-house most probably was, and, 
allowing space for the chimney, pulpit, and deacons' seats, the 
superficial surface of the floor was so small as to render the sup- 
position of its being the Old Meeting-house simply preposterous. 

I will not follow the President in attempting to argue the 
probabilities of the case, either way, but will refer to Mr. Putnam's 
paper, as showing what may be said against the committee's con- 
clusions, and also recommend those who rely upon the tradition, 



38 

to read the admirable essay of Mr. Gilbert L. Streeter, who. I 
think, after giving due weight to every possible consideration 
tending to connect that tradition with the old Meeting-house, 
finds it insufficient, though with some show of plausibility applica- 
ble to the first Quaker meeting-house or some part of it. 

Mr. Streeter's essay is remarkable for its judicial tone, clear- 
ness of demonstration, and lucidity of style. I do not see how 
it is possible to improve upon it or to add to its force. 

I shall not venture upon the fields so well occupied by each 
of these essayists, whose papers I commend to the perusal of 
every candid inquirer. There are, however, points that I insisted 
on in i860, the statement of which will show some of the issues 
of the contention which Mr. Rantoul, although he does not 
wholly ignore it, leaves us to infer was either above his compre- 
hension, or that he deems the objections to the committee's 
report frivolous. Otherwise he could hardly have had the 
effrontery to declare, in effect, that the claim that my views did 
not harmonize with those of the committee " is newy 

The contract with John Pickering, in 1638-9, required the 
building of a " catted chimney " twelve feet " long,'' and four feet 
high above the roof. I differed from the committee in respect 
to the meaning of these words of dimension ; and Colonel 
Peabody insisting that "catted," a word not found in any dic- 
tionary, was equivalent to "catty-cornered," — the meaning of 
which is equally uncertain, and not recognized by the lexicog- 
raphers — it was made to serve the purpose of fixing the height of 
the plates above the sills, because under this impression the com- 
mittee decided that the fireplace was in one corner of the room 
and that the chimney rose twelve feet to the roof and four feet 
above it. On the other hand, I asserted my belief that the 
" length" of the chimney is what we of to-day would call its 
" width." Now this difference is important ; since upon the sense 
in which these words are taken depends the agreement of one of 
the dimensions of the barn with the height of the Meeting-house. 
By putting the chimney in the corner, and assuming that it 
was twelve feet high to the eaves — • the difficulty of reconciling the 
height of the walls of the Meeting-house and the frame of the 
barn is removed, and one of the dimensions of the former is 



39 

established ; but besides the violence done to this theory by the 
assumption that the posts of the barn had rotted away just 
enough to require to be spliced so as to agree with the height 
of the chimney, — which seemed to be begging the question, — 
the application of the word " height " to so much of the chimney 
as protruded above the roo/, and the word " length " to the rest 
of it, seemed arbitrary and unreasonable. 

Instances of chimneys built at so early a date were rare, and 
their dimensions could not be certainly ascertained. During the 
last forty years, however, more light has been thrown upon that 
subject. I am indebted to Mr. Putnam for calling my attention 
to the dimensions of the chimney to the schoolhouse erected in 
1647 for Kdward Goffe, and Henry Dunster the first president of 
Harvard College. An extract from the entry reads as follows : — 

"4. Item. That we will erect a chimney, below ten foote wide within 
the jaumes, and another in the rome above, eight foote 4 wide within the 
jaumes, in the place where we shal be directed, whereof if the jaumes be 
different from the wal of the house we will receive eighteene pence a yard for 
as much as we wal with stone and ten shillings a thousand for what square 
brickes, we lay, and sixteene shillings a thousand for the bricks that appear 
out of the roofe." 

The contract is recorded ; and it is given verbatim in Paige's 
history of Cambridge, published in 1877. 

This shows the extraordinary width of chimneys at that period ; 
a fact also commented upon in a communication to the New- 
England Historical and Genealogical Register, in 1868, on ''Old 
Houses in Essex County," by Jacob W. Reed, the genealogist 
of the Reed or Read families. He gives the dimensions of fire- 
places in 1645 ^s " about ten feet long, five feet deep, and high 
enough for a man to stand erect under the great oak mantel-bar, 
with stools at each end of it for the women and children to sit 
[on] and knit or read," etc. 

These stools or benches each side of the chimney indicate the 
origin of the word " fireside," which is now used as a metaphor, 
since we sit in front and not at the side of modern fireplaces. 

You will notice that while Mr. Reed uses the modern word 
" fireplace," and regards the longitudinal dimensions of the 
opening as the ^^ length,'' the Cambridge men use the word 



40 

" chimney,''' instead oi fireplace, in giving us the " width " of the 
opening. " Chimney " appears to have been the primitive and 
regular word for fireplace. I have taken the pains to trace the 
use of the word back in the French language from which we derive 
it. It is one of the oldest words both in English and French, and 
in either language applies more properly to the fireplace — its 
application, even in English, to the flue or pipe, being compara- 
tively modern, according to Chambers, who finds no evidence of 
the use of " stacks," in England, earlier than the twelfth century. 

Littr6 defines " cheminee,''' the French form of the word, as 
" Endroit dans une chambre, dispose pour servir de foyer et 
communiqnant avec le dehors par iin tuyati qui donne issue a la 
fumee ; " that is, a place in a room, arranged to serve as a hearth, 
and communicating with the outside by a pipe, or flue \Juyau'\ 
which gives vent to the smoke. He traces its use in literature 
back to the Roman de la Rose, in the latter part of the 13th 
century. 

As late as 1706, Judge Sewall records in his diary that " Mr. 
Salter makes us a little Chimney in my Chimney : make a Fire in 
it to try it." That is, the mason contracted the fireplace. 

In Murray's New English Dictionary the word is etymologi- 
cally derived from the Latin caminus a furnace, forge or oven 
(by metonymy, a fireplace), and in this sense the lexicographer 
notes its use in the year 5 84, in a Frankish document — relating 
to a solarium cum caminata ; that is, a sun-bath with a fire- 
place. 

In the exquisite idyl of " L'Allegro," Milton gives us an ex- 
ample of this use of the word " chimney," as well as of the 
use, of the word length, for what we now call width, of the 
opening, where, after Puck had threshed out the corn, he, — 

" — lies him down the lubbar fiend, 

And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length, 

Basks at the fire his hairy strength." 

Warton in a note to his edition of Milton's " Juvenile Poems," 
published in 1 790, explains the second line by saying that Puck 
or " Robin Goodfellow," Milton's " drudging goblin," " stretched 
along the whole breadth of the fireplace, basks till the morning." 



41 

Steele, in the " Tatler," and Scott, in " Old Mortality," use 
" chimney " in the same sense. 

The last authority that I shall cite on the subject of the size 
of old fireplaces in New England is one of Mr. Rantoul's 
" seven investigators," and therefore his testimony ought to be 
conclusive. 

In one of the pictures of domestic life in 1692, which Mr. 
Upham draws so graphically in his " History of the Salem 
Witchcraft," he writes : — 

" As a wintry evening drew on, the wide, deep fireplace — equaUing in 
■width nearly the whole of one side of the room, and so deep that benches 
were permanently attached to the jambs, on which two or more could com- 
fortably sit — was duly prepared." 

Here he gives us a clew to the signification of the phrase 
"chimney-corner," which, but for such glimpses of the past, 
would be wholly unintelligible to modern ears. This phrase, in 
modern general use, I do not find in the Encyclopaedic Dic- 
tionary ; but it is defined in Webster's International Dictionary, 
as " the space between the sides of the fireplace and the fire." 
For centuries this warm retreat for both old and young has been 
known by this name ; thus, Sir Philip Sidney, in his " Defence 
of Poesy," written in 1581, presents this instance of its use : — 

" He Cometh unto you with a tale that holdeth children from play and 
old men from the chimney-corner." 

Fortunately, we are not without positive and direct evidence 
of the size of the " chimney," or fireplace, of the Old Meeting- 
house, for there is on record in the City Hall an order, passed 
in 1662, for providing, " at the charge of the town, a bier for 
carrying of corpses to burying ; and the chimney, in the meeting- 
house is the place appointed for it to stand in." I give it in 
modern spelling. 

I have the dimensions of a bier, more than one hundred 
years old, I am told, still in use in St. Peter's Church, and of 
another used at Harmony Grove Cemetery. The former meas- 
ures seven feet by two feet. Its height is twenty-two inches, 
and the arms project eighteen inches ; while the latter, which has 



42 

been in use twenty-five years, at least, is somewhat larger ; being 
seven feet eight inches in length, two feet three inches in width, 
and eighteen inches high. The bier of 1662 was, probably, not 
more diminutive than the smaller of these modern litters. By the 
order, as we see, it was to be kept " in the chimney," which, / 
say, means the fireplace ; but if it was shoved up the flue, Mr. 
Rantoul, who knows it all, and who, at the expense of the 
Essex Institute, has published so much matter to the edification 
of no one but himself, should devote a little time to making this 
clear. I suggest that he take an early opportunity to print a 
brief supplement informing us how they managed to squeeze 
the bier into the narrow flue of that monstrosity of masonry, 
with which George M. White, or some one else, evidently under 
Mr. Rantoul's direction, has illustrated the sheet put forth by Mr. 
Rantoul in 1898, in the name of the Essex Institute, and in the 
pamphlet " Story of the Meeting House," issued by him in 1897 
under the same pretence — I presume also at the expense of the 
Institute, which it would be not so difficult to ascertain if 
Mr. Rantoul had not succeeded in taking from the Society the 
choice of the Committee on Publication, and assumed absolute 
and unlimited authority to print what he pleases, and to modify 
or reject whatever productions of others he deems it prudent to 
withhold from the public. 

These pamphlets are off'ered for sale at ten cents per copy, and 
thus, in my judgment, a double sale is effected : first of the pam- 
phlet, and then, of the purchaser. 

There seems to be no excuse for Mr. Rantoul's reticence on 
the subject of the town order I have referred to, since, if he 
deems the public records of insufficient credibility even when 
ratified by Felt, in his " Annals," he, according to his own ideas of 
the unimpeachable veracity of the newspaper, ought at least to 
have paid some heed to the anonymous article in the " Salem 
Evening News" of June 18, 1898, in which this extract from the 
records receives the implied sanction of the writer and the 
printer. 

As for Mr. Peabody's theory of the meaning of " catted 
chimney," there was more sense in his adopting it, so that he 
might relegate that troublesome, but, in this instance, indispen- 



43 

sable, adjunct of the meeting-house, to a convenient comer. 
Since, as I have said, the lexicographers failed to throw any 
light upon the signification of the word, there was a fair excuse 
for his giving play to his imagination. In all my reading of our 
ancient New-England authors, I do not remember to have en- 
countered this word more than once ; but in that single instance 
its meaning is given with it. This instance occurs in the preface 
to Increase Mather's " Remarkable Providences," where he de- 
scribes the freaks of a violent flash of lightning in 1653, "which 
brake and shivered one of the needles of the katted, or wooden, 
chimney," etc. 

I think, therefore, on the authority of Mather, as well as from 
the other data I have given, that we are fully warranted in hold- 
ing to the opinion that Mr. Pickering engaged to build a 7uoode?t 
chimney twelve feet wide, as we should now say, and perhaps 
four or five feet deep. This " chimney," the pulpit, the com- 
munion table, the gallery stairs and the deacons' seat, together 
with a sufficient allowance, besides, for the swinging of the door, 
or doors — if, indeed, they swung ///, would leave but very scant 
room for a single, llourishing class in a modern Sunday-school ; 
which, to my mind, renders the supposition that Mr. Nichols's 
little cowhouse was the First Meeting-house, wholly incredible. 

In regard to the probable size of the Old Meeting-house, in 
comparison with contemporary similar structures in the vicinity 
of Salem, and with the dimensions of its immediate successor, I 
spent considerable time on that subject in or about i860, with 
very unsatisfactory results. Since then, however, nothwithstand- 
ing the President's declaration that " the committee . . . had 
before it just the evidence we have before us, — no more and no 
less,'' I have learned, I think it proper to say, that there has been 
a great accession to our means of satisfactorily determining the 
facts which the committee were appointed to ascertain. I have 
already shown this, in part, in my remarks on the measurement 
of the chimney, — one of my most important data being that 
furnished by Mr. Putnam ; — the record of the contract for 
building the chimney for the Cambridge schoolhouse which was 
first published by Dr. Paige in 1877. 

Mr. Reed's communication to the " New England Historical 



44 

and Genealogical Register " was published, I believe, the same 
year in which young Putnam was born, and eight years after the 
committee's first report was rendered. 

The dimensions of the various meeting-houses in Danvers, 
Marblehead, and Cambridge, also, have since been published in 
the histories of those towns, respectively ; and here, for tmie will 
not permit me to pursue the subject exhaustively, I will give the 
result of a tabulation I once made of the superficial areas, in 
square feet, of the floors of six of these meeting-houses, with the 
name of the town to which each belongs and the date of the 
building of each : — 

Size. Square feet. Date. 

( 17 X 20 =z 340 1634-1639 1^ According 

Salem . . . - 17X45= 765 — 1639-167O ) committee. 
L 50 X 60 =r 3000 1670-17 18 

Cambridge . 40 x 40 :rr 1600 
Danvers or Sa- f 34 x 28 = 952 — 1672 
lem Village . (48 x 42^2016 — 1701 
Marblehead. ^ 

The leanto only y 20 x 40 =z 800 — 1672 
on the back side J 

By comparing this list you will observe that the leanto addi- 
tion to the meeting-house in Marblehead, which only a few years 
before was an unimportant precinct of Salem, contains nearly 
two and one-half times the area, as given by the committee, of 
the original meeting-house of the great town of Salem, before 
Marblehead, Beverly or Danvers was set off, and thirty-five 
square feet more than the same meeting-house contained after 
its enlargement, and as it remained down to 1670. No pride 
of opinion, and no blind deference to any mere conjecture, no 
matter from whom, should deter us from reviewing a judgment 
based upon imperfect evidence, which did not include all the 
above facts, and others increasing the disparity by their showing 
an increased difference of population now ascertainable with 
comparative accuracy. 

Even the little community of " The Farmers," of Salem Village, 
— to whom was given the pulpit and deacons' seat of the First 



45 

Meeting-house when the latter was deserted for a new one, — 
when they conveyed those trophies to the new meeting-house 
in Danvers, installed this furniture in a room which, if we must 
credit the committee, was actually more capacious by nearly two 
hundred square feet than the old central Meeting-house, where 
they had continued to worship as a part of the congregation 
of the First Church down to the time of its being dismantled 
— which was only a short time before they built a house for 
themselves, exclusively. Are these facts of history? or has there 
been some mistake ? 

As for the new, or second, meeting-house in Salem, we have 
the concurring testimony of several who remembered its great 
size. The actual area of the floor, as we have seen, w'as three 
thousand feet, but it had spacious galleries, and was called by 
Mather and Calef, "The Great Meeting-House." Sewall, also, 
who sat within it in 1692 with his associate councillors, when 
they came down to examine the accused witches, was impressed 
with "the very great assembly there," and yet he had witnessed 
without comment the vast throngs which overflowed the North 
Meeting-house in Boston when the Mathers were in the zenith 
of their popularity. 

Is it likely that the predecessor of this great edifice was David 
Nichols's little cowhouse with a piece added thereto measuring 
only twenty-five feet by seventeen feet, and twelve feet stud? — 
And that those spacious galleries, accommodating, in all proba- 
bility, hundreds, were the immediate successors of the little 
roost which we see to-day, — and another like it, opposite, which 
has disappeared ? It seems to me absolutely fatuous to believe 
such a thing. 

P>ut on this point I must refer you to those students of our 
local history, who, like Mr. Putnam, care more for facts, than 
sentiment; and I take leave of this part of the subject by asking 
you. If it is reasonable that Salem, after using a meeting-house 
that, beginning with an area of three hundred and forty square 
feet, according to the committee, had grown only four hundred 
and twenty-five feet in the thirty-six years between 1634 and 
1670, suddenly jumped into new quarters embracing an area of 
three thousand square feet? — And this, after having parted with 



46 

" The Farmers," who were not content with a new house of a 
smaller area than nine hundred and fifty-two feet? 

The writer of the first report calls the " relic " our " Loretto," 
our " Santissima Casa.'" The writer of the second report calls 
it, in plain English, "this holy house ; " and Mr. Upham chimes 
in by declaring, " here is our I.oretto, to be visited by all in 
coming ages and from foreign lands." I agree that no more 
appropriate name could be given to it, for I think there is quite 
as much evidence of its having been the First Meeting-house as 
there is that the house of the Virgin Mary, after three or four 
miraculous translations through the air, should finally rest in 
Macerata ; and what makes the parallel still more interesting is 
that Mr. Endicott had another " Sanfissi??ia Casa " on the 
corner of Washington and Church streets. It is quite the 
fashion for those who beUeve in miracles to enhance the diffi- 
culty of believing, in order to make the act of faith more 
meritorious. Witness the holy robes at Treves and Moscow 
and at half a dozen other places ; and the handkerchief of Saint 
Veronica, also miraculously duplicated. And it is even said 
that there are two skulls of a certain saint, one that served him 
in youth and the other in adult age. 

In the autumn of 1863 there was a sudden revival of interest 
in the project of restoring the Old Meeting-house. This followed 
the arrival of Mr. George Atkinson Ward, the distinguished 
stranger from New York, whom I have already described. For 
forty-one years he had been away from the scenes of his youth, 
and now came back to spend his remaining years in the society 
of his sister and to gratify himself in the renewal of old inti- 
macies and in the forming of new friendships. 

Tall and erect, yet well-proportioned, and neatly attired, he 
was a conspicuous figure on the street, where, with tlie dignity of 
a Roman senator, the grace of Apollo, and the genial courtesy 
and affectionate manner of an older brother, he won the good- 
will of all who met him. 

Mr. Endicott, chairman of the first committee, and writer of 
the first report, was away in a distant asylum, the victim of a 
chronic mental malady ; and but two of the committee remained 
— Colonel Peabody and Mr. Phippen. \Vard, who at once took 



47 

an active interest in the Institute, going from shop to shop 
along the principal streets, and into the houses of his friends, 
and the workshops of mechanics, soliciting new members of 
that Society, soon took up the abandoned " relic." He found 
Mr. Upham a willing subject for the contagion of his enthu- 
siasm ; nor was Colonel Peabody less ready to corroborate by 
internal evidence, which he demonstrated to the satisfaction of 
his interested companions, the probabilities which they had 
derived from tradition or from the records, in regard to the loca- 
tion of the gallery, the door and the pulpit ; and, — the recorded 
^^ length " of the chimney being assumed to be the height, — to 
accurately estimate how much should be added at the foot of 
the several posts and studs to make them agree with the recorded 
standard. 

l"he subject of reerecting was now again brought before the 
Institute, — this time by Mr. Ward. On the twenty-eighth of 
December, 1863, he informed the assembled members that 
measures were in progress to obtain possession of the frame of the 
old building on the land of David Nichols, in the rear of iJoston 
street, and to place the same in the rear of I'lummer Hall. 

Let it be observed that this was the first step taken with the 
knowledge of the Institute towards reviving the project begun in 
1859, and which had been slumbering since i860, and that the 
mover, although a member of the society, was not a member of 
the committee. Immediately after this announcement, not 
before, as Mr. Rantoul perversely represents, Mr. Ward was 
chosen a member of the committee, taking the place left vacant 
by the decease of Mr. Endicott, two weeks before. 

These facts I take from the printed proceedings, which Mr. 
Rantoul prefers to the secretary's manuscript record. For my- 
self, I need not refer to any record ; for I presided at the meet- 
ing, put the motion to vote, and recollect the circumstances. 

About six weeks before the advent of Mr. Ward, occurred the 
field- meeting at Salem Willows, on which occasion, Mr. Rantoul 
disingenuously represents, I guided a party to Gallows Hill to 
visit "The remnant of the Old First Church " — twice referring 
to this excursign as if it was an indubitable f;ict, and evidently 
for the malicious satisfaction of " rubbing it in." 



48 

But the record of my connection with this field-meeting, — 
which did not appear in our printed Proceedings until published 
the next year, — is, in all its details, without the slightest fou7id- 
ation in fact. I have already given you an idea of the strain 
which my official duties, and my services for the men enlisting 
for the army imposed upon me. It was seldom that I could get 
a half- holiday, and still more rarely a whole day, in which to 
attend a field-meeting. This may explain why I did not attend 
the meeting that day, nor escort any visitors or others about 
town, or elsewhere ; and I had to repress a strong desire to 
drive to the Willows to bring back some of my friends who, I 
feared, had been exposed to the tremendous rainfall in the 
afternoon, which made that day memorable. Indeed, I do not 
remembei- to have seen that report before my attention was 
called to it by Mr. Rantoul's recent paper, my copy of the third 
volume of the Proceedings containing it, remaining uncut until 
this controversy began. Since then, a few minutes of inquiry 
soon set my wondering mind at rest upon the question as to 
how such an absurd and utterly groundless report could have 
got into the Secretary's records. It seems that Mr. Coroner 
Walton, yet living — and may he long be spared to us ! — then on 
the staff of the Salem " Register," and who habitually attended the 
field-meetings, and sometimes reported the proceedings — with 
the commendable enterprise of an up-to-date journalist wrote 
out the ivho/e report in the morning, before the out-of-town visitors 
arrived. Possibly, it had been planned, without my knowledge, 
that I was to act as a guide in the manner stated in his report ; 
in which case, had no other engagement prevented, undoubtedly, 
I should have complied with the request of any one to be shown 
the place and the building, if I could find either ; but it is equally 
certain that I never did ; and so I lost, what now appears to 
have been my only opportunity to see Mr. Nichols's old cow- 
house, /// situ. That chance passing, it happens that I never set 
eyes on any part of it until it was set up back of Plummer 
Hall ; and, to save my life, I could not tell within an eighth of 
a mile where it probably stood. 

See, now, what a ridiculus nuts this mountain has brought 
forth ! and note, also, that the Secretary got his memoranda for 



49 

this part of his record from a newspaper ; the repertory which 
Mr. Rantoul declares to be " the record which nobody else 
can falsify," " the last resort " upon which one must " rely for a 
genuine impression of the day," in which "nothing can be 
suppressed " — " nothing can be distorted " ; and " an indispens- 
able guide to the period covered by its work." 

A more recent and very apposite instance of this same infal- 
lible veracity of the press is shown in the report of our last 
evening meeting in Academy Hall when the address upon 
Paper Currency was delivered. The Salem " News " of the next 
day informed the public that President Rantoul presided and 
introduced the lecturer. Now, since, at the president's request, 
I relieved him on that evening, the audience must have been 
astonished to observe that the slender and graceful president 
had suddenly grown so stout, and have marvelled that in his 
introductory remarks he should have trespassed only two minutes 
upon the time alloted to the lecturer, and omitted to repeat his 
story of what he had seen or done in Europe. Forty years 
hence, for want of more interesting and important employment, 
some future president of the Institute may make a " powerful " 
proclamation of this incident, in a Boston newspaper, — if Mac- 
aulay's New Zealander does not get in ahead of him to prevent 
it by smashing the presses and knocking the types into pi. 

Right here, let me add, because it will save my commenting 
further on the subject, that it was Dr. Wheatland's practice, 
while secretary, to save cuttings from the newspapers with his 
other loose memoranda, jotted down casually, and to place them 
in separate parcels, to be used at his leisure in making up his back 
records ; for the Doctor, being not only one of the most me- 
thodical but one of the busiest of men, especially about the time 
of our meetings, frequently had not the opportunity to collect 
and marshal, at the time, all the materials needed for a full 
record of the doings of the day. I have known him to put off 
the entry of the record of a meeting for months while awaiting a 
reply to an application to one of the speakers for further infor- 
mation respecting the subject, or substance, of his remarks. 
And in his last illness, I presume, it is well remembered how 
painfully, in a double sense, he went over his memoranda, enter- 



so 

ing, revising, and extending his records accordingly. From this 
pecuUarity of the Doctor's habit, it happened that the usual par- 
liamentary form of reading the records of the last meeting, when 
it was not wholly dispensed with, was cursorily done from the 
secretary's loose minutes ; so that there was little opportunity 
for amending the record, and less need for such a proceeding in- 
asmuch as everybody was satisfied with the Doctor's solicitude 
to do no injustice to any one. In the printing of the records in 
the Proceedings, however, it was his custom to omit such motions, 
and incidents, and even such records of meetings, as he deemed 
not sufficiently important to be preserved in print. In this, he 
followed the practice of the learned societies of Europe and 
America, in the publication of their transactions. If one, there- 
fore, delights to split hairs in such things he can amuse himself 
infinitely in seeking discrepancies between the printed and the 
written record, and imperfections in both ; although, of course, 
the written original entries are, technically, the legal record, and 
practically the more full and accurate. 

But to return from this digression. At a meeting of the Insti- 
tute on Monday the twenty-fifth of January, 1864, not the twenty- 
sixth as is incorrectly given in the Collections, Mr. Ward again 
appeared, and read his account of the formation of the Essex 
Historical Society, to which Mr. Rantoul refers, and which 
was afterwards printed in our Collections. The following entry 
in the record is particularly worthy of notice, since, so far from 
there being no record of any want of harmony in the committee 
— as Mr. Rantoul has asserted, (by which he means any dissent 
on my part from the committee's views) he persisting in his false 
assumption that I was a member of the committee — it shows 
that there was, presumably, a lively debate ; and that I took 
part in the discussion : — 

"Monday, January 25 — Evening Meeting. 
" The President [Huntington] in the chair. 

. . . "Allusions having Ijeen made in Mr. Ward's communication, to 
the existence of the frame of the original ' First Church,' in Salem, on the 
land of David Nichols, rear of Boston street, considerable discussion ensued 
as to the proof of the above-mentioned frame being that of the ' First Church.' 
The President, Francis Peabody, G. A. Ward, A. C. Goodell, Jr., and Rev. 



51 

G. D. Wildes, participated in the discussion ; the arguments adduced seemed 
to favor the affirmative of the question." 

Now, without giving further particulars from other sources, let 
me supplement that record by the statement that the debate was 
protracted and somewhat heated ; and it was the occasion of the 
reproaches which Mr. Ward applied to me on his way home, and 
which I have mentioned as being within the memory of witnesses 
still living. 

All this Mr. Rantoul could have learned from me, if it had not 
served his purpose better, first, to spring upon me, publicly, a false 
accusation, and await my reply, which he is now getting. 

From this time forth the doings of the " investigators " ceased 
to engage the attention of the Institute until the second report 
was acted upon on the nineteenth of June, the next year. Mean- 
while, the business seems to have been exclusively conducted by 
Colonel Peabody and Mr. Ward, save that Mr. Upham, upon the 
death of the latter, succeeded him upon the committee. The 
date of Mr. Ward's death was Sept. 22, 1864, and Mr. Upham 
was appointed to the committee eight days later. Though thus 
snuffed out in Salem, the flame of interest began to break forth 
with brighter beams in the Massachusetts Historical Society, in 
Boston. At a meeting of that Society on the thirteenth of Oc- 
tober, a member, Mr. WiUiam C. Endicott, nephew of Mr. 
Peabody, informed his hearers that : — 

" The frame of the first house of worship erected in Salem, on the site of 
the present edifice occupied by the First Church, had been indicated by tra- 
dition as still in existence, and forming part of a building in another vicinity; 
that recent investigations by members of the Essex Institute, among whom 
the late George A. Ward, Esq., was actively engaged, had resulted in the 
identification of that portion of the building which had been used in the 
construction of the old church; and that careful measurements of different 
parts of the structure corresponded exactly with the dimensions of the first 
house of worship, as recorded in contemporary docicments . 

" By the exertions of certain members of the Institute, and other citizens 
of Salem, the frame had been secured, and, after being restored in those 
parts which were decayed, was to be erected on a lot in the rear of Plummer 
Hall, and protected by a substantial and permanent covering; the interior 
being so arranged as to exhibit the timbers of the ancient building, and, at 
the same time, to afford a place of deposit for certain antiquarian relics, 
from the cabinet of the Institute." 



52 

This statement by Mr. Endicott puts a new phase on the 
matter, smce we must presume that, if not inspired by the " com- 
mittee," it was not made without their sanction. The partic- 
ipation of the Institute as a body, and the report of i860, 
seem to have been entirely ignored. Observe, that he declares 
that some members of the Institute, including Mr. Ward, "who 
was actively engaged," had recently identified a portion of the 
building " in another vicinity," and that by their " careful 
measurement of different parts of the structure " they were found 
" to correspond exactly with the dimensions " of the First 
Meeting-house, " as recorded in contemporary documents^ 

If I were to adopt Mr. Rantoul's style of argumentation, I 
should begin by asking, " Now, who was Mr. Endicott, and 
what was the character of the body of men that he was ad- 
dressing ? AVere they guilty of planning or conniving at a 
scheme for the preservation of a ' sham relic ' ? Were they 
* victims of fraud ' ? Or would they have taken notice of the 
excursion of Mr. Ward and other members of the Institute, and 
other citizens of Saletn, to Gallows Hill to take the dimensions 
of a ' desecrated shrine '? " God forbid ! 

Mr. Rantoul knowing the facts I have related in regard to the 
doings and methods of the Essex Institute, — since nothing in 
that line could have ^' escaped the restless energy of his mind'''' 
who wrote the " Powerful Defence of the Old Salem Relic," — 
for such is the heading which he or the editor of the " Tran- 
script " without objection from him, gives to the paper to which 
I am now replying, — and knowing my connection with the 
relic, and aware of the shifting grounds of those who claimed 
that, in whole or in part, it was identical with the First Meeting- 
house erected in Salem, comes before the public in the name of 
the Essex Institute to resent a grievance in which he endeavors 
to implicate me and to show that I had added to my offence by 
acting a double part. His " Defence " after it had become the 
property of the Institute by the vote to lay it on the table, he 
incontinently, and without permission of the Directors, to whom 
it was addressed, rushed off to the " Boston Evening Transcript," 
as a lyddite bomb ostensibly to demolish Mr. Eben Putnam, 
but indirectly to annihilate me. But the experiment may teach 



53 

him caution. There may be some who in view of his predica- 
ment will think, if not say, with Hamlet : — 

" For 'tis the sport to have the engineer 
Hoist with his own petar." 

He tells us the "committee" had the sa)>u ^'■evidence we 
have before us — no more and no less." ^^ hy, then, does he not 
settle the whole controversy by publishing the " contemporary 
documents" which Mr. Endicott told the Massachusetts His- 
torical Society " contain the record of the dimensions " of the 
First Meeting-house, with which, after " careful measurement" 
by his " seven investigators " the different parts of Mr. Nichols's 
old cowhouse were found to " correspond exactly " ? 

In the last paragraph of the report of Mr. Endicott's remarks 
I notice that we get the first intimation that the useful service 
to the Institute, which was a principal inducement to its accept- 
ance of the custody of the old frame, was recognized by any one 
who may be considered as representing the committee. This 
corroborates what I have already said on this subject. 

The identity thus indicated in 1S64 by Mr. Endicott was 
fully established to the satisfaction of the Massachusetts His- 
torical Society in 1S76, when Dr. Ellis, in a memoir of his 
friend, Mr. Upham, declares that the veritable frame and rafters 
and the " rough-hewn oaken beams, cut when there was no saw- 
mill," had been " set up again in exact rencioat of form and 
materials ! " 

Three years later, however, Mr. Winthrop, president of the 
society, quietly ignores the whole affair in his remarks on the 
occasion of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the 
settlement of Boston, when he reviewed, at considerable length, 
the early history of the first settlement of Salem and the organi- 
zation of the First Church there. 

Of the effect of the revival, or resurrection, rather, of 1864-5, 
upon people nearer the home of the Institute I shall say some- 
thing further after I have discussed the report of 1865, when 
my name again appears in print, surreptitiously affixed to the 
printed report. 

Mr. Rantoul attempts to prove that I actually subscribed that 



54 

paper by alleging that it was printed in the Historical Collec- 
tions for June that year, and that I was editor. Let us see how 
the records, and the internal evidence of the Historical Collec- 
tions bear him out in this. 

The records show, and it is not disputed, that, in February of 
that year, I engaged to edit the Historical Collections printed 
during the year, throughout. Also, that, on the eleventh of that 
month, the December number of the Collections for 1864 re- 
mained unprinted. It was a time of important changes in our 
relations with the press. Our former printer, Mr. Swasey, had 
retired from the printing-office, leaving this work undone, and 
various proposals were made and entertained for continuing it. 
Mr. Frederick W. Putnam had been authorized to have the 
"Naturalist" printed in Boston; and some chaffering was had 
with several printers, including Mr. Robert Manning, who repre- 
sented the establishment under which Mr. Charles W. Felt was 
carrying on his experiments with his invention for type-setting. 
All this took time, insomuch, that the volume for 1864, for the 
printing of which Dr. Wheatland in February, 1865, was given 
unlimited discretion to contract, lingered along indefinitely, and 
the report of the committee on publication, May 9, 1866, shows 
that the numbers for October and December, 1865, were still 
unprinted. This was more than a year after my engagement, 
and three months after my year would have elapsed had I con- 
tinued as Editor ; but in the same report of the committee on 
publication in which the chairman announced the backward state 
of the Historical Collections for 1865, he announced, also, that a 
change of editors had been arranged for the ensuing year. Now, 
at what time had this change been made ? It must have been 
some time before May, 1866, when it was spoken of as a thing 
of the past ; and at that time, we have seen, the numbers for 
October and December were still unprinted. 

Let us now turn to the printed Collections, for assistance in 
our inquiry. We find in the number for February an introduc- 
tion unmistakably written by me ; and the April number being 
bound up with it, must also be charged to me. But the next 
number (for June) — the number which contains the second 
report of the committee — looks suspiciously like the work of 



55 

Mr. Rantoul. This circumstance induced me to ransack my old 
files and papers, with the result of the discovery of the manu- 
script of Mr. Upham's Memoir of Mr. Ward, printed as the first 
article of the April number — on which I find this memorandum 
in pencil, written by me : " Ward d. Sept. 22, 1864, my last onier 
as Editor'' 

This caused me again to have recourse to the secretary's 
records to learn when, if at all, the Committee on Publication 
had appointed my successor. But the search was fruitless. 
However, I found in the Collections, that the report of the com- 
mittee immediately followed the leading; article, — " The Nar- 
rative of Major Thomi)Son Maxwell," communicated by Mr. Ran- 
toul. At the end of the next number, I found an " Additional 
Notice," or supplement to this article, introduced by six lines 
signed " Ed." It is a suggestive circumstance that this " addi- 
tional notice " consists of an extract from a private letter to Mr. 
Rantoul by Mr. Thomas. Aspinwall. I say, suggestive, because 
it induces the question, who but himself could have had access 
to Mr. Rantoul's private correspondence ? Not I, for as I have 
said, and as the records show, my functions, as editor, had ceased ; 
and I am sure I never saw the manuscript or had the article in 
my possession. Turning back to the first article of this second 
number, I found it to be a paper on the Seal of the Court of 
County Commissioners, which I recognized as having been pre- 
pared by Mr. James Kimball, at that time chairman of that Board. 
I remember this distinctly, because he discussed the subject with 
me, we having offices in the same court-house. This article is 
also subscribed, " Ed." I was now evidently on the right scent, 
and was encouraged to believe that with a little patience I might 
yet run down the game. 

But on again recurring to the Secretary's records, in which 
any important changes in the constitution of the committee on 
publication, or any action of similar importance, — such as a new 
contract with the printers, or the appointment of an Editor, 
should have been recorded by the Secretary (as was the case 
when I undertook to edit), I got no information for my pains. 
Not discouraged, however, I pursued the inquiry by further ex- 
ploration of the Collections. I found nothing bearing upon the 



56 

subject in the next issue ; that is, that of October and Decem- 
ber which, we have seen, was behindhand in May, 1866 — save 
that, in the October number, I found a letter to Mr. Rantoul's 
friend, Mrs. Hanaford, of Beverly, dated Dec. 4, 1865 ; or two 
months later than the book itself purports to have appeared. 
But when I reached the next number I found the introductory 
article, and the article which follows, — - on the city seal (both 
anonymous) — unmistakably in Mr. Rantoul's style; and the 
authorship of the latter was betrayed by a letter from Mr. 
George Peabody, addressed to " Robert S. Rantoul, Esqr." I 
also found, on the inside of the first cover — by reason of what 
friction between the Editor and Dr. Wheatland, I know not, 
since I had ceased to have anything to do with the editing or 
publishing — ■ a special notice requiruig all communications to 
be addressed to the " Secretary of the Essex Institute." This 
would have been superfluous in my day, because I never doubted 
that, as he was corresponding, as well as recording, secretary, he 
was the proper person to receive, in the first instance, all com- 
munications in regard to the business of the Society. In the 
next number I found that this conflict has assumed a more 
definite form, since, while the Secretary continued his notice on 
the inside of the first cover — on the outside of the last cotter, the 
following notice appeared : — 

"Communications received by H. Wheatland, Secretary, or R. S. 
Rantoul and W. P. Upham, Editors, Salem, Mass." 

Here, at last, I had literally tracked my game to cover. Mr. 
Rantoul's concealment would have continued perfect, if he had 
not indiscreetly trusted to the supposed fleeting nature of the 
temporary paper cover which is usually rejected by the book- 
binder. Nowhere else, so far as I have been able to discover, 
is there to be found the slightest hint of his appointment to 
the office of Editor. The search became more interesting as 
I proceeded. In the next (September) number Dr. Wheatland 
reasserts his rights as Secretary by renewing his notice, and Mr. 
Rantoul's notice is omitted. In the December number, how- 
ever, while the Secretary's notice appears on the inside of the first 
cover, the outside of the last cover contains a notice requesting 



57 

communications to be sent either to Doctor Wheatland, Secre- 
tary, or R. S. Rantoul, Editor. 

Thus, at last, Mr. Rantoul shows his victorious hand. The 
modest, conscientious Mr. Uphara retires from the contest. He 
declines to make a claim to the exercise of any function which 
had been claimed by the Secretary ; and Mr. Rantoul, alone, 
mounts into the saddle of his hobby. In iS68, I find, however, 
that Mr. Upham appears as the only editor ; but, Dr. Wheat- 
land, being then President, they join, in apparent concord, in 
advertising for the receipt of communications. 

How long Mr. Upham remained undisturbed in the office of 
Editor I have not taken the pains to inquire, since I have Mr. 
Rantoul's declaration, under his own hand, written nearly two 
years ago, that, '^^ for lack of a better" he had " done substantially 
all the editing that is done here for a number of years." 

Now, to go back to the meeting of June 19, 1865, when the 
second report was read and acted upon. I was not present on 
that occasion, for, besides the pressure of business which I have 
already given as an excuse for not continuing longer as Editor, I 
had been by unanimous vote of the citizens of Salem, elected 
Alderman — an office which I had not sought. This choice, I 
suppose, was because of my known zeal to secure the introduc- 
tion of water from Wenham Pond. On that account, also, it 
fell to me to be made chairman of the committee upon whom 
devolved the drafting of the ordinance establishing a Board of 
Water Commissioners and defining their duties, and to preside at 
the numerous hearings of remonstrants, and other cranks, who were 
trying to defeat the will of the public expressed in the referen- 
dum, by a large vote in the proportion of eleven to one. Besides 
this, I had to discharge the routine of my official civic duties — 
which were unusually pressing that year on account of the close of 
the war, the great Fourth of July celebration, and the perambula- 
tion of the city boundaries ; it being a quinquennial year. 
Still, further, during the summer, the stockholders of the street 
railway, which had been going behindhand from the start, called 
a meeting to decide what should be done to reform, or dispose 
of, the road. Being a small stockholder, I attended, and was 
made chairman of an investigating committee of which I wrote 



58 

the report intended to be exact and exhaustive and containing 
alternative suggestions for improving the railroad and its finan- 
cial condition. The report was adopted and a new Board of 
Directors chosen, over which I was called to preside. This was 
the beginning of nineteen years of toil in bringing the road from 
a state of bankruptcy up to an annual earning of thirty per cent 
profit. This proved a strain on mind and body, which, super- 
added to my official work in the Probate Office, and the City 
Hall, eventually forced me to quit all business, for a time. 

In the same year, 1865, I was appointed one of the first 
Board of Commissioners on the Province Laws, without pay ; 
which finished its work in 1S67. This added burden, which I 
carried at night, after the labors of the day were ended, forced 
me, reluctantly, to retire from active service in the Institute. 

It was in the very climax of these duties — or about then — 
that the meeting was held at which the committee on the old 
frame made their report. I was not present, for I could not be ; 
but Mr. Rantoul laas ; and read his paper on Thompson Max- 
well, which appeared as the first article in the June number of 
the Collections, immediately preceding the report of the com- 
mittee. Of course, as this report did not appear in the news- 
papers, I knew nothing of it and had no reason to suspect that 
it purported to be signed by me, when everybody, including Mr. 
Rantoul himself, must have been aware of my disbelief and 
opposition. 

That the number for June and August, 1865, could not have 
appeared until late in the year is probable, since, as we have 
seen, the next issue for October and December was not in print 
in May, 1866. 

At what time I first learned of this repeated license with my 
name, I know not, nor who was responsible for it ; but if Mr. 
Rantoul was the actual, though disguised editor of that number, 
he must have known that I did 7iot affix my signature. And I 
now aver, and charge to his face, that if he says he ever saw 
the manuscript paper with the signatures attached, which he 
intimates he can produce when the occasion calls for it, but 
declines to show to the reporters, or to any person connected 
with the Institute, — and, as the editor of the " Salem Evening 



59 

News," says, "cleverly dodges the question," put to him by the 
editor — he must be held party to the outrage ; and, moreover, if 
he edited that number, as it seems probable he did, from the 
evidence I have shown, that he himself affixed all the sigtiatures, 
either with his own hand, or by some one acting under his 
direction. 

One indubitable mark of spuriousness in my name, as there 
given, is the absence of the addition " junior." It is true that 
when I was elected to the county office, being then a resident 
of Lynn, and the only person of that name in that city, I never 
used the addition, so that, in my official capacity, throughout 
my term I continued the practice I began with ; but, in my 
private capacity, after my return to Salem, I invariably added 
the "junior." It was engraved on my visiting-canls, and 
appears in every instance, I believe, in the record of my election 
to any office or committee of the Institute ; and, in short, every- 
where, except in the heading of my communications to the 
Collections, or other papers which had been first printed in a 
newspaper, and transferred to the Collections with a heading 
prepared in the printing-office, and wherein my name printed 
as Register of Probate and Insolvency, without the addition, 
seems to have been copied. 

Now, whoever affixed my name to the first report seems not 
to have known the distinction in my practice as to the use of 
"junior," and, probably, misled by looking at the Probate notices 
in the newspapers, copied my official signature without the ad- 
dition. So when the editor of the Collections for June, 1865, 
made up his copy for the printers, he followed the precedent of 
1 860, making only the changes rendered necessary by the deaths 
of Messrs. Endicott and Ward, and the accession of Mr. Upham, 
and leaving my name without the "junior," added as before. 

It may be asked, " Why did you not make, as Dr. Wheat- 
land would say, ' a fuss about it '? " Well, in the first place, you 
know, or ought to know, that is not ftiy style, as the slang phrase 
goes. If I undertook to correct every erroneous or unauthor- 
ized statement that is publicly made concerning me, I should 
have little time left for any other employment, unless I kept a 
clerk specially for the purpose ; and, in the case of a newspaper. 



6o 

notwithstanding Mr. Rantoul's truckling laudation of the press, 
you never knew an editor even to appear to retract without 
ingeniously and meanly contriving to make the libel worse than 
before. This is a part of the trade. Everything favorable to 
the victim of editorial malice is intentionally suppressed, and 
every unfounded rumor that can be availed of to further smirch 
the victim is printed under sensational scare-heads, without first 
giving the victim a chance to refute it. 

At the annual meeting of 1865, previous to the meeting at 
which the second report was made, I presided. On that occa- 
sion Mr. Huntington retired from the presidency and Mr. Pea- 
body was elected in his place. As usual, there was but one 
form of ballot which, as I recollect, was thrown unscraiched and 
without opposition. On that ballot my name appeared as vice- 
president, but the candidate whose election was chiefly desired 
by all of us was Colonel Peabody. He was, first and last, my can- 
didate, and I do not remember a word or hint of objection to 
him. Dr. Wheatland, Mr. Frederick W. Putnam and I had 
labored earnestly with the Colonel, entreating him to allow us 
to present his name, and had succeeded. We had a purpose in 
this. Besides enlisting in behalf of the Institute the interest of 
a man of his intelhgence and ability, we desired to secure his 
cooperation in a grand scheme to increase the usefulness of the 
Institute, in which he, of all available men, was the most hkely 
to succeed. I need only say, that this was the obtaining from 
his friend and distant relative, George Peabody, of London — 
whom he was intending to visit on his next voyage to Europe — 
a fund sufficient to relieve us of the great and increasing burden 
of our Natural History collections. The success of this effort is 
shown in the Peabody Academy of Science for the County of 
Essex, which was the direct result of Colonel Peabody's application. 
We were all alive with favorable anticipations, yet not without 
some apprehension as to the result of this mission, the fulfilment 
of which vve felt depended upon electing Colonel Peabody. 

This was one of the most important events in the history of 
our Society, and no devoted friend of Dr. Wheatland (who had 
given his life to the upbuilding of the Institute and was anxious 
that the scheme should not fail) and no well-wisher for the sue- 



6i 

cess of the twofold object for which its members had labored 
since its organization, would have interposed an obstacle to its 
progress, or introduced an element of discord into its delibera- 
tions. Neither could the impressions which that event must 
have made upon his memory, be effaced by the lapse of time or 
the counter-excitement of other occasions. 

By invitation of Mr. Rantoul I prepared, to be delivered 
before the large assembly at our Half- Century Commemoration 
exercises, in 1898, a full account of this interesting episode in 
the history of the Institute, and of all the steps that led up to 
it; but having necessarily given to Professor Putnam — who of 
all men living had done most for the upbuilding and fame of the 
Society — full credit for the part he had taken in the founding 
of the Academy, I was not only not called upon to speak, but 
from the manuscript of my address all allusions to Putnam were 
struck out by Mr. Rantoul, for no other alleged reason than that 
he had done so in the exercise of his prerogative as editor. 
Of course I could not consent to gratify his malice against one 
of the noblest of men, who had anticipated and spent his 
patrimony to maintain and improve the scientific side of the 
Institute, nor would I permit his bungling hands to spoil any 
composition of mine ; and so my address, which he had contrived 
to smother in the Cadet Armory, was suppressed in the printing- 
office, and I received my manuscript back, he positively declining 
to allow me to decide upon my own composition after I had sent 
the copy at his solicitation. 

Now, such being the circumstances of the eventful annual 
meeting of 1865, on which occasion Mr. Rantoul himself was 
elected to office and also appointed on a special committee 
to prepare resolutions of thanks to the retiring President, Mr. 
Huntington, and Mr. Rantoul knowing very well the impossi- 
bility of my being at the same time a candidate for the vice- 
presidency and a close rival of the successful candidate for the 
presidency, how can he explain the declaration in his address 
that I " was a candidate for the presidency and pretty evenly 
divided the votes with Colonel Peabody, who was elected''''? 

What is the sinister motive for this slanderous statement? It 
behooves Mr. Rantoul to retract and apologize, or to show some 



62 

reasonable foundation for his charge, or failing that, to stand 
convicted of deliberate falsehood and slander. He may take 
either alternative, but, unless he retracts publicly, he will receive 
from all fair-minded men the scorn which such despicable con- 
duct deserves. Never, so far as I know, was there any rivalry 
by the supporters of contending candidates for any office in 
the gift of the Institute until his wire-pullers attempted to intro- 
duce the degrading methods of pothouse politicians, in which 
arts I am not skilled, and, thank God, could not be tempted 
to connive at. I can truly say that I never yet sought, much 
less worked for, any office, political or otherwise, notwith- 
standing Mr. Rantoul's repeated charges and insinuations to the 
contrary. 

On the subject of my relations to Colonel Peabody I think it 
proper to add, that he and I had several conferences, both 
before and after his election, in regard to his mission to Lon- 
don. The Secretary's manuscript record for June 6, 1865, 
which Mr. Rantoul has read, but which was never printed, shows 
that Mr. Upham, senior, and I, were elected a committee to 
confer with our new President on the condition and needs of 
the Institute, and to suggest whatever we thought might conduce 
to the promotion of its interests. The result of this was a com- 
prehensive statement of our needs in every direction. I wrote 
it myself, but preferred it should go out to England as Mr. 
Upham's, — he being so much my senior and so distinguished a 
personage. 

Colonel Peabody asked for a brief synopsis of this statement 
to be referred to by him during the voyage. This, also, I pre- 
pared ; and Mr. Putnam had it printed. Copies of it, doubtless, 
yet remain on the files of the Institute. This does not indicate 
that I had been sneaking about soliciting votes, as his rival for 
an office which I would have shrunk from accepting, at least 
while Dr. Wheatland was alive and a possible candidate. 

At the next annual meeting, Vice-President Fowler in the 
chair, there having been some indications of jealousy concerning 
the confidential transactions between the President and the 
former committee, another committee, consisting of six members, 
was appointed to solicit aid for the Institute over a broader field 



than the city of London, or whithersoever else the movements 
of the former committee were directed. 

In order that there should be no partiality in the choice of 
this committee, a nominating committee of five, with Mr. 
Rantoul at the head, was chosen, who did the business ; and the 
committee, elected accordingly, consisted of Colonel Peabody, 
and Messrs. Charles A. Ropes, R. C. Manning, William Sutton, 
F. W. Putnam, and Samuel P. Fowler. 

Mr. George Peabody's munificent gift of $110,000, procured 
through Colonel Peabody by the enterprise, the hopefulness and 
unflagging zeal of Mr. Putnam, upon the plan devised by the 
former committee, rendered the services of the latter committee 
superfluous. 

I now approach the end of this reply to the president's dis- 
course boastfully proclaimed as " powerful," though, to me, 
exhibiting power only in that exercise of force in which, in 
another " Comedy of Errors," Antipholus of Syracuse bids 
Dromio, of Ephesus, to stop. If I have wearied your patience 
by the length of this essay, I feel sorry for you, but I pray 
you to remember that it is not because I have not tried my best 
to curtail this reply to an unprovoked assault. As it is, I have 
omitted, as I should prefer to in any case, the discussion of 
personalities that are not strictly germane to those questions 
which concern you and the Institute as well as myself. And I 
have even kept silent in regard to personal affronts, made 
deliberately, in the public meetings of the Institute, and in 
flagrant violation of the by-laws, because I have thought that 
another occasion might be more suitable for complaining of a 
personal insult, though of such exceptional gravity. Neither 
have I thought it necessary to point out specific instances of 
false deductions, or to rebut charges of insincerity for which 
there is no other foundation than my concurring in complimen- 
tary votes or showing the toleration which I deemed it my duty to 
show, as an officer of the Institute, of sentiments uttered by other 
members whose views were known to be not in accord with 
mine, and whom I had no authority to interrupt. 

Moreover, the knowledge that it was unpleasant to me to have 
the unauthorized use of my name continued should be sufficient, 



64 

it seems to me, to induce any one, with even the crudest idea of 
what constitutes the gentleman, at least to relieve himself from 
responsibiUty for it, instead of persisting in it in the most offen- 
sive manner. But Mr. Rantoul has chosen another course, and 
I have no alternative but to give his position as dispassionate and 
thorough an examination and exposure as I am able to in the 
limited time at my command for which I am forced to lay aside 
work on more interesting subjects that I ought to be pursuing 
with entire exemption from such wanton and uncalled for inter- 
ruption. 

Now, bearing all these facts in your minds in regard to my 
and Mr. Rantoul's connection with the publications of the Insti- 
tute, which I wish I could have imparted with greater brevity and 
yet with equal impressiveness, I trust you will be prepared to form 
an opinion of Mr. Rantoul's candor and veracity when I read to 
you some extracts from his address and correspondence. First, 
from his address, he says : — 

" We were then conducting two serial publications respectively called the 
' Proceedings ' and the ' Historical Collections.' . . . / have read them 
under the dome of the British Museum. Somebody must be responsible for 
the issue of these. Somebody must provide matter for these publications, 
select such parts of the recorded transactions as it was best to give to the 
world, edit them and see them through the press. In a broad sense the 
President and Secretary of a Society are responsitie to the public for what it 
utters, but we had a ' Publication Committee ' of which the Chairman was 
the zvorking metnber, and this committee exercised the discretion and did the 
work. The Rev. John Lewis Russell was the Chairman of it from 1856 until 
May, l86l,when Abner C. Goodell succeeded \vim. for eighteen years. . . . 
The Committee made yearly reports and introduced some of its yearly 
Historical volumes zuith a preface." 

Next, I repeat from his letter of Aug. 19, 1899, to the Editor 
of the " News " : — 

" Of this group, Mr. Goodell is the last survivor. For a series of years he 
was, from 1861, chairman of the publication committee and became vice- 
president of the historical department the next year. No one was in a 
better position to know if anything irregular or questionable was done, or 
anything omitted, upon which the verdict of those investigators can be set 
aside." 



65 

So, according to Mr. Rantoul, the Institute had a pubUcation 
committee, of which the chairman was ivorking member, and 
this committee, " by its working mejnber,'" — that is, by me during 
my " eighteen years " of chairmanship, " exercised the discretion 
a?id did the 7uork ! " and " The Committee introduced some of 
its volumes with a Preface ^ It seems to have served his 
purpose to omit to mention that the Editor, when there was one, 
performed his duties without the assistance of any committee. 
Mr. Nevins echoes the President's declarations on this point, 
probably under advice, he not knowing that there was not a 
word of truth in them. 

Now Mr. Rantoul admits that " in a broad sense the president 
and secretary of a society are responsible to the public for what 
it utters, " thus seeking for a chance to hedge when he is 
charged with monopolizing the functions of the publication 
committee and editor. Yes, and Mr. Rantoul well knows the 
Secretary was responsible for the management of the publications 
before we had an editor. Being ex-officio a member of the pub- 
lication committee, he was entrusted, by the consent of the 
members, with all the functions of editor, and no other member 
of the committee had any share in the editorial work. I believe 
I was the first editor ever appointed, and the work I did in that 
capacity was acknowledged by me. This office I undertook at 
Dr. Wheatland's request, in order to relieve him of the increasing 
burden of our business with the printers. The committee on 
publication was the proper party to contract with the printer 
and had the power to decide the number of the edition and the 
size of the pamphlets and to pass on any question upon which 
the editor was in doubt. It also had power to appoint an 
editor. This was the limit of the functions it exercised. 

All this Mr. Rantoul knows perfectly well. He knows that 
during the eighteen years from 1861, in which he says I continued 
chairman of the publication committee, succeeding Mr. Russell, 
and covering the period in which Mr. Rantoul advertised as 
editor, either alone or in connection with Mr. Upham, not one 
word passed between us relative to " providing the matter, 
selecting parts of the proceedings, or editing or seeing through 
the press," anything, except, first, my serial communications 



66 

prepared before I held any ofifice, and deposited with the secre- 
tary to be inserted in the Collections, at such times and in such 
instalments as he, or an editor (if one should be chosen), should 
determine ; and second, other papers read before the Institute or 
specially prepared, which were treated in like mariner. 

Now, Gentlemen of the Board of Ditrctors, I hesitate to trust 
myself to characterize these statements of Mr. Rantoul. I prefer 
to leave them for you to pass upon according to your own candid 
judgment ; and if you can find any excuse for his conduct which 
will leave Mr. Rantoul's reputation as a gentleman and a man 
of honor and veracity, untarnished, nobody will be more glad 
than I. But I am sorry to say I see no escape for him. 

I have reserved for this place the remarks I promised to 
make on the subject of the waning appreciation of the " sacred 
relic," by the people of this vicinity after the report of 1865. 
Much may be said on this subject, but I will only take as little of 
your time as is necessary to refer you to the published sheets, 
in 1S64, 1866, and 1874, setting forth the attractions of the 
Institute, and the notices of a similar kind which appear on the 
pages or covers of the Collections and Proceedings, where the 
old "relic" is wholly ignored. I find the same indifference 
shown in historical pubhcation, out of the county. 

One of the most noticeable instances of this want of interest 
occurs as late as 1890, in the account of Salem given in the 
Rev. Elias Nason's Gazetteer of Massachusetts. The author, a 
distinguished writer on New- England history, and fond of relics 
and romantic incidents of the past, spent some time in Salem, 
with which he had been long familiar, studying how he might 
improve his account of the city as given in earlier editions of his 
book. Mr. Varney, also, who revised the book, took great pains 
to include whatever was striking, and at the same time authentic ; 
but not a word is said by either of these gentlemen about the 
casa santissima, which, as the committee predict, pilgrims of the 
future, flocking hither for the purpose, are to enter with bare 
heads and in their stocking-feet. 

Mr. Rantoul seems to have aimed to distinguish his career as 
head of the Institute by inaugurating a system of advertising by 
which he has conferred notoriety on David Nichols's cowhouse 



^7 

by such methods as bring into universal notice Beecham's Pills 
and Kennedy's Medical Discovery. I protest that " The Story 
of the Meeting-House," and other similar brochures, should not 
bear the imprint of the Institute, nor be sold on its account. 
Still, if Mr. Rantoul would feel aggrieved at being deprived of 
the vocation of agent for the publisher, which, for several years 
past, seems to have been his chief employment, he might be 
permitted to assume the work on his own account, and at his 
own expense ; but I warn him to desist from the unauthorized 
use of my name as one of his means for carrying it on. 

With questionable taste and ill-concealed sarcasm Mr. Ran- 
toul refers to the variety of topics upon which I have spoken at 
meetings of the Institute or written for its publications. It 
would be more gracious in him to confess of how much of this 
work he has availed himself in the preparation of his own so- 
called productions. 

Again, instead of sitting around here as the warden of David 
Nichols's cowhouse, contriving plans for the quixotic scheme of 
putting it under cover inside of our new quarters, publishing 
small fictions to magnify its importance, at the expense of the 
Institute, and snappishly endeavoring to preclude all doubt and 
denial by others, and in other ways intermeddling with their 
affairs, it would be more dignified and more consonant with the 
functions of his office if he employed his spare time in some way 
more honorable to himself and more useful to the Institute. 

I would suggest that he vigorously set about devising some 
way by which the old literature that has been relegated to 
some unknown region may be brought back to our library 
shelves so as to enable the librarian to respond oftener than one 
time in three to calls for books which students of New England 
history find it desirable and necessary to consult. 

I have prepared some votes which I offer as a fitting conclu- 
sion of this reply — on which I ask the action of the Directors — 
as follows : — 

Whereas, Abner C. Goodell, senior vice-president of the 
Essex Institute, objects to the use of his name, subscribed. 



68 



ostensibly, to two reports, as a member of the committee or 
committees on the " Old Meeting House," so called, for the 
reason that he was never a member of any such committee, and 
never concurred in or subscribed any such report ; and, — 

IVhejeas, Said Good ell is the only survivor of those who it is 
claimed constituted said committees or either of them, — 

Voted, In compliance with his request, that henceforth no 
copies of said reports be printed, sold, or distributed in the name 
of the Institute, by any person connected with the Institute, or 
acting under its authority, or the authority of any member, officer, 
or committee thereof. 

And, whereas. It has been proposed to enclose said building — 
which now stands in the rear of Plumraer Hall, and is commonly 
known as the " Old First Church," or the " First Meeting House," 
in Salem — within some other structure now built or hereafter 
to be erected for the Institute, — 

Voted, That no further outlay be made either upon said build- 
ing, or for protecting or enclosing it, as aforesaid, from the funds 
of the Institute, or by its authority, or the authority of any mem- 
ber, officer, or committee thereof, except by unanimous consent 
of the Directors. 



A LETTER 



TO 



MR. THOMAS CARROLL, 

OF PEABODY, 



CONCERNING 



THE FIRST MEETING-HOUSE 

IN SALEM, MASS. 

By gilbert L STREETER, 

Member of the Institute. 



SALEM, MASS.: 

Newcomb & Gauss, Printers. 

1900. 



A LETTER TO MR. THOMAS CARROLL OF PEABODY, 

CONCERNING THE FIRST MEETING-HOUSE 

IN SALEM. 

My Dear Mr. Carroll: — 

You have asked me what are 1113' views as to the genuineness 
of " the first meeting-liouse," so called, in the rear of Plummer 
Hall. I will tell you, with pleasure, and with entire freedom 
and frankness, and, if you please, I will give a synopsis of the 
evidence upon which my opinion is based. I know that, as a 
zealous antiquarian, you are in touch with all the curious old 
matters that turn up from time to time, and your excellent 
judgment will enal)le you to contribute to the final settlement 
of this interesting question. But, before I proceed, allow me 
to tell you a little story. 

Many years ago, on one line sunnner day, I had the curiosity 
to trace the course, then and now dimly discernible, of an an- 
cient road, used by the first settlers in traveling between Salem 
and Marblehead, in one direction, and Ijetween Salem, Peabody 
and Boston in the other. It touched Salem in Blubber Hollow, 
between Boston street and Witch Hill. This ancient way, in 
its course to Marblehead, passed westward of the hill known as 
Norman's Rocks, and intersected Highland avenue at a point 
between the Rocks and the first house beyond. Thence it 
passed directly across the Pastures, near where the powder 
house stood, until it reached what was known as Stearns' Pas- 
ture, then turned to the south and passed close around the Up- 
per Branch of the Mill Pond, beneath the cliffs there, where 
part of the sustaining wall still remains. Passing over the 
eastern slope of the hill, and across the plain where the French 
settlement now is, it crossed the B. & M. Railroad just above 
the first cut beyond Castle Hill. Thence it crossed the old 
Metcalf meadow, by a log bridge, w^hich spanned Clay Brook, 
to the rising ground towards the Forest River road. We lose 
track of the road in the vicinity of the Pickman Farm, but it 
probably led on to Marblehead by way of Legg's Hill. 

A branch road seems to have passed down the western side 



of the Mill Pond and formed a connection with the head of 
Broad street. Its course could be traced at the time I speak of. 
From this latter point a bridle-path passed up over the flank of 
the Lookout Hill, through the Devil's Gate, so called by the 
up-towners, and joined the Marblehead road near the powder 
house. This made a complete and convenient circuit of the 
hills above the town. 

Now the old building we are to talk of stood upon this Co- 
lonial Highway, and was said to have been, and doubtless was, 
a part of an ancient tavern, known as Tompkins' Inn, and it 
was situated at the point nearest to Boston street, where the 
end of Proctor street now is. I published an account of this 
pleasant ramble at the time in a Salem newspaper, and in it I 

said : — 

" The reader may have seen this old tavern, back of Blubber 
Hollow, and may have mused upon its antiquity. Some, who 
prefer what is interesting to what is strictly matter of fact, like 
to consider it as the original first church,— or meeting-house, as 
the godly and extra anti-papal fathers of the early days styled 
their houses of worship." 

I thus happened to be the first person who called public at- 
tention to this ancient and interesting building, as it then was, 
and one of the few who saw it in its dirty and dilapidated con- 
dition. It had, for many years, been used as a barn, or cow- 
house, and you will notice that at that time I disclaimed belief 
in the legend that it had been " the first meeting-house." 

Not long after, in 1859, the Essex Institute took the matter 
up, and, through a committee, decided that here was indeed the 
" first meeting-house," and they had what was left of it fixed 
up, in the rear of the Plummer Hall, and set apart as a " sacred 
relic" and " holy house " of God. 

For the reasons given I have been exceedingly interested in 
the controversy which has recently arisen as to whether this 
structure was really what it was supposed to be, and whether, 
after all, a mistake has not been made, and whether the Insti- 
tute's committee were not too hasty in their conclusions. And 
as the statements thus far made upon this subject do not present 
the case in the way in which it lies in my mind, I desire to 
review, briefly, the whole subject, avoiding all personal considera- 
tions, or allusions, and freeing the case from extraneous ele- 



mente, so that we may see what is the simple historical truth. 
The facts are very few and easil}- understood. 

The first information that history gives us concerning the first 
meeting-house in Salem is furnished by Dr. Bentley, who states, 
in his history of Salem, that "• an unfinished building of one 
story was used occasionally for public worship) in Salem from 
1629 to 1034. A proper house was then erected by Mr. Norton, 
who was to have one hundred pounds sterling for it." Dr. Bent- 
ley had access to certain records, or memoranda, concerning our 
early settlers, wdiich have since been lost, which enabled him to 
relate some details which other historians have not known. The 
" proper house " thus mentioned is the " first meeting-house " 
of Salem. We know nothing about its size, or appearance, as 
the records give no account of it. Not a single dimension is 
known, and its area is simply a matter of conjecture. It nnist 
have been apparently a building of considerable size, as it cost 
one hundred pounds sterling, which was a large sum in those 
days. 

Prof. John Fiske, the historian, states that the pound sterling 
of that time was ecjuivalent to about twenty dollars of our mon- 
ey. If this ratio is correct, the new meeting-house must have 
cost about two thousand dollars. Brooks Adams says, in his 
book on Massachusetts, that the pound in the early days was 
equivalent to nearly twenty-five dollars now. This would make 
the cost of the meeting-house about •'t'2500. And this provided 
for the walls and roof only, as the glazing and plastering, or 
"daubing,"' as it was then called, were added afterwards, and paid 
for extra. Salem was rich enough to have a meeting-house of 
sufficient size to accommodate all its inhabitants, then numbering 
several hundreds, and as the inclination was not wanting, it is 
reasonable to believe that they did have it. Indeed, the descrip- 
tive phrase, " proper house," used by Dr. Bentley, doubtless 
referred to its sufficiency in size as Avell as its suitableness in 
other respects. 

This house served, with repairs, until l(io9, when it was en- 
larged, by adding on a piece " twenty-five feet long and the 
breadth of the old building."' What the breadth of the old 



'Town Records, April 12, \Q-]S. 



6 

building was is unknown. But the addition seems to have been 
smaller than the original house, for it cost only sixty-three 
pounds sterling, while the original cost one hundred pounds. 
The assumption which has been made, that the old and new parts 
were of equal size, seems to have no foundation whatever. 

The enlarged meeting-house was suilicient for over thirty 
years more, when, in 1670, a second meeting-house was built, 
on the same land, and two years afterward the old meeting- 
house was taken down, by vote of the town, and the materials 
" reserved for the town's use." ^ Sums of money paid for taking 
down the old meeting-house are specified in the town records. 
The constables were "appointed to name thirty men a day to 
appear to help take it down, and they are to begin at Strong 
Water Brook, and so downwards to the lower end of the 
town."2 

In 1673 the town voted to erect a public l)uilding to be used 
as a town-house, school-house, and watch-house, and directed 
the carpenters to use in its construction the " timber of the old 
meeting-house, according as the timber will bear."^ They obvi- 
ously thought some of the timber would not "bear" using 
again. It had already been in service for forty years, and some 
of it may Avell have been unfit for further use. How much was 
actually used in the new building is not known, nor whether 
that which was used, if any, came from the original meeting- 
house of 163-1, or from the enlargement in 1639. All we know 
is that the meeting-house had been taken down, and that it was 
intended to use some of the materials in a new town-house, if 
any were found to be fit. 

And this vote of the town, in April, 1673, is the last thing on 
record concerning tlie first meeting-house. There is not a single 
historical fact relating to it to be found in any public or private 
document since that time. And that was two hundred and 
twenty-six years ago. Every additional statement concerning 



1 The second meeting-house was 50 by (50 feet, and 20 foot stud. 

■■^ Town Eecords, August 17, 1672. This shows that the building must 
have been of very much larger dimensions than the one in question. It 
was so large that the town deemed it necessary that relays of thirty men a 
day, from the different sections of the town, should be drafted to take it 
down. 

3 Town Records, April 21, 1673. 



the old meeting-house, made since that distant period comes 
from the copious sources of conjecture, inference, and imagination. 
Now, having exhausted the known facts, w^e might leave the 
subject. 

The Tradition. 

But there is a tradition. I need not say that tradition is not 
history, nor need I add that tradition does not command confi- 
dence unless it has been widely disseminated in the comnumity 
in the past, in some definite form, and runs well back to the 
events to which it relates. Unfortunately the tradition refer- 
ring to this structure does not conform to these tests. It had 
been almost unknown until a recent period, and seems to have 
been confined to a single family. This famil}^ is unable to trace 
the origin of the tradition, or even to state its precise purport. 
The story was never current in the community. 

Our historians, apparently, knew nothing of it. Bentley, 
who describes all the meeting-houses, makes no allusion to the 
possible survival of this one. Felt, in his Annals, makes no 
reference to it. Neither did Mr. Uphani in his discourse upon 
the First Church, in 1826. All these gentlemen described the 
meeting-houses with particularity, and were curious about the 
antiquities of Salem, but neither of them seems to have heard 
of this tradition until it was made known by the Institute's 
committee. 

It was, as I have said, confined to a single family. It was 
unheard of by the public until about forty years ago, when it 
was brought to light by Mr. Caleb Pierce, an estimable gentle- 
man, whom some of us recollect. Now this very limited circu- 
lation of the tradition starts a suspicion that there may have 
been a mistake somewhere. 

But what was this tradition ? What did it say ? Mr. Pierce 
tells us, and he alone knew the story. He got it from Benjamin 
Proctor and his sister, both excellent people, and they received 
it from the Pope family. He said he had seen the Proctors and 
*' found that they well remembered that the old tavern was al- 
ways known as having been made from the First Meeting- 
house. Mr. Proctor says he has heard his father say so more 
than a hundred times." 



This, then, is the tradition, and the whole of it, and it will 
be noticed that it did not say that the little building then incor- 
porated in the old tavern was the "first meeting-house," but 
that it was "• made from " the first meeting-house. This is a 
very different matter, and the committee seem not to have no- 
ticed this important limitation of the statement. 

If the building was, after all, merely " made from " the ma- 
terials used in the first meeting-house, the question naturally 
arises, how much, and what kind of the old materials were 
taken ? Was it a few joists, or rafters, from the original struc- 
ture, or was it some newer stock used in the subsequent repairs 
or enlargement of the house? The Town-house was taken 
down in 1760, so that whatever timbers it might have contained 
that had been in the meeting-house of 1634, had already been 
in service for one hundred and twenty -six years, and had been 
used in two different buildings. Was there any Methusalah in 
town aged enough to be able to identify the original parts? 
Must not some of them have become rather shaky and unre- 
liable ? 

It seems, indeed, incredible, that after this lapse of time the 
whole framework of the church of 1634 was still in good con- 
dition, and could be picked out of all the materials used in the 
Town-house, the precise pieces, those, and all those, and no 
others, and could be put together again as they were originally. 

The committee make no allusion to these practical difhculties, 
but seem to have been very easily satisfied that the tradition 
meant what they desired it to mean. 

The}^ found certain indications of a second-story floor in an 
end of the building. After a study of " peculiar tenons " and 
mortices, they decided that this floor was a gallery, and hence 
that the building must have been a meeting-house. But still 
they had doubts, for, they said, they were satisfied that " the 
frame was the only part of the building that afforded unmis- 
takable evidence of having belonged to the original construc- 
tion." The overhead floor, if the building had been a store- 
house, might have been a loft for merchandise ; if it had been a 
dwelling, as in fact it had been, it might have been for a cham- 
ber. But, subsequently, the committee discovered some more 
mortices and tenons, and in a second report reverted to their 



original decision — it was a meeting-house. This shows simply 
how little evidence will suffice to enable conscientious persons 
to believe what they want to be true. 

The Avhole discussion of the gallery question, however in- 
genious and interesting, cannot be considered as possessing 
much historical value, and yet upon this slender basis has been 
reared the whole fabric of this restored first " meeting-house." 

Persons who visit this relic are surprised to find it so small, 
and their suspicions of a mistake are at once aroused. The few 
decayed timbers attached to the inside walls of a small modern 
edifice do not suggest an ancient meeting-house. This diminu- 
tive framework surely could not have sufficed for the goodly 
company of people who had accompanied Conant, and Endicott, 
and Winthrop. They find it difficult to believe in its genuine- 
ness. 

This point of dimensions is, in fact, an insuperable objection 
to the claim wliich is put forth. Salem, as I have said, was 
then a place of several hundred inhabitants. Mr. Felt thinks 
tliere were 900 in 1637, which may be an over-estimate. But 
this we do know, that the immigration in 1683 had been very 
large, as many as fourteen and fifteen ships with passengers ar- 
riving in some single months. In that year, says Dr. Bentley, 
" When the inluibitiints of the towns in the vicinity of Boston 
began to emigrate such families as arrived in Salem were easily 
persuaded to remain ; and in 1634 Salem began to flourish." 

It was in this year of ],)rosperity that the meeting-house was 
built. Is it probable that the small affair in the rear of Plum- 
mer Hall — 17 by 20 feet — would have been deemed sufficient ? 
It was the only public building in town, wherein town meetings 
and all other assemblies were held, as well as religious services. 

Mr. Felt, our annalist, computes that 226 houses were built 
in Salem prior to 1638. Allowing only four persons to a house 
would orive us 884 inhabitants. From 1636 to 1641 one hun- 
dred and sixty new members joined the church. These, with the 
old members, and the many inhabitants who did not belong to 
the church, were all to be provided for in the meeting-house. 
For in those days everybody went to meeting, and if a few held 
back, they were under pressure and even under compulsion to 



10 

attend. And yet this building would seat only 75 to 80 persons, 
even when crowded together.^ 

Other towns liad ample houses of worship. There is no in- 
stance on record of a meeting-house in any town of the colony 
so small, or so inadequate to the population, as this alleged 
meeting-house of 1684. In Dedham, for instance, in 1637, only 
two years after that town was settled, when the population was 
much smaller than that of Salem, they built a meeting-house 36 
feet long, 20 feet wide, and 12 feet stud. Can we believe that 
at that very time Salem was content with a meeting-house 
scarcely more than half as large ? In New Haven, in 1637, 
while Salem was still using its first meeting-house, they had a 
meeting-house 50 feet square, and New Haven was much 
smaller than Salem. In Plymouth, as early as 1627, seven years 
before, they had a " very large " meeting-house, as stated by a 
person who saw it in that year. It had a flat roof, and this was 
so ample that six cannons were placed upon it to aid in the 
common defence. Why should we doubt that Salem, several 
years later, was equally well furnished ? And does not the 
cost, '12000, or $2500, show conclusively that the Salem meet- 
ing-house was a large and sufficient building ? 

These considerations lonof ago led me to the conclusion that 
the frame-work in the rear of Plummer Hall is not that of the 
first meeting-house. I have never felt called upon to promul- 
gate these views, but now that the question has been re-opened, 
and especially as you solicit me, I see that the public demand a 
satisfactory settlement of the whole matter. If they have to 
abandon the pleasing illusion which they have cherished so long, 
they will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that it is 
better to be historically accurate than to be sentimentally mis- 
taken. 



lAllowiufif a space 18 by 30 inches to each person, upon a plain bench, 
with an aisle two feet wide from front to back, and a platform four feet 
square, for pulpit, deacon's seat, and communion table, with a small allow- 
ance for steps or a ladder to reach the gallery — all of which limits are 
really too small — the area would only admit the seating of 75 or 80 persons, 
crowded. 



11 

Solution of the Question. 

In conclusion I wish to say that there is another possible and 
not difficult interpretation of the meaning of the tradition, as 
given by Mr. Pierce. 1 will sulnnit the proposition, with much 
confidence, that, as the tradition was handed down in a Quaker 
family— that of the Popes— the "first meeting-house " referred 
to was the first Quaker meeting-house, and not that of the First 
Congregational Church. There are several things which favor 
this view and seem to confirm it. The first Quaker meeting- 
house was built by Thomas Maule, about K388, and it stood in 
the upper part of Essex street.^ The structure in the rear of 
Plummer Hall is large enough for a Friends' meeting, and there 
is, therefore, in this case, no difficulty about its size. The term 
" meeting-house," as applied to it, instead of the word church, 
is quite in accordance with Quaker custom. 

It is certainly curious that while none of the old fanulies in 
the First Church seem to have had any knowledge, or suspicion 
even, of the possible survival of their first house of worship, a 
prominent family of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, kept 
alive a tradition of the "first meeting-house." This challenges 
our serious attention. How happened tlie old Puritan house of 
worship to l)e cherished only in the memories of a family of 
Quakers ? How came it, or any part of it, to be transported 
and set up on a Quaker's land ? 

Surely the members of the First Churcli must have had an 
affectionate regard for the sanctuary in which the Higginsons, 
and Roger Williams, and Hugh Peter had preached to their 
ancestors. They would have witnessed its destruction with re- 
gret, and if any observed what became of its ancient frame- 
work they certainly would have l)een of the number. liut, 
after the edifice had been demolished, in 1672, and the timbers 
had been scattered and destroyed, or had been used in the 
town liouse, its remains were lost to view, and seem to have 
been forgotten. 

Subsequently, the Popes, earliest of the Quakers in this 
town, and persistent adlierents of that sect down to our own 



iThe Quakers formed the second religious society in Salem. 



12 

day,i related to their families that the old taveiii contained ma- 
terials that had been used in " the first meeting-house." They 
had every reason to cling to the memory of their old meeting- 
house, for they and their relatives and friends had been cruelly 
treated in this town for fidelity to their religious convictions. 

The original Quaker meeting-house, built about 1(388, as I 
have said, ceased to be used for purposes of public worship in 
1718, and was turned into a dwelling-house, and served as such 
until 1788, when it was sold to Robert Wallis. What he did 
with it is unknown. But it is important to notice that at this 
time there were living in Salem two men, Enos Pope, 2nd, and 
Enos Pope, 3rd, both Quakers, upon whom this whole question 
depends. They seem to have been the authors of the tradition 
related by Mr. Pierce to the Institute's committee. Indeed, 
Mr. Pierce distinctly says : "It is from him (Enos Pope, 3rd), 
that I (first) got the account." It is not heard of prior to their 
time. Mr. Pierce states that Enos Pope, 2nd, was born in the 
old tavern house in 1721. Enos Pope, 3rd, may have been born 
in the same place, and probably was. 

Now these two Quakers undoubtedly knew what became of 
the building in which they and their fiiends had attended 
meeting for many years. And this makes it quite probable 
that they actually saw their " first meeting-house " demolished, 
and its materials used, in whole or in part, in enlarging the old 
tavern building, in which they were born. In their old age 
they related this story to their children, and in due time it be- 
came a family tradition ; but in later years, within our own day, 
the precise meaning of the tradition was lost, and it was mis- 
takenly supposed that it referred to the original house of the 



ijoseph Pope, who was here in KioO, was before the Court, with his wife, 
in 1652, for attending Quaker meetings, and subsequently they were ex- 
communicated from the Salem Church for holding Quaker views. Several 
others of the family were persecuted at different times for similar offences. 

Dr. Henry Wheatland, in his notices of the Pope family, in the Institute's 
Historical Collections, says: — 

" The study of the early history of this and the allied families leads to 
an intei'esting investigation into that portion of our colonial history which 
relates to the persecution of the Quakers, sevei'al members having suffered 
punishment, fines, imprisonment, etc., for their firm adhesion to the i>rin- 
ciples of this sect." 



13 

First Church, instead of that of the Society of Friends, or 
Quakers, to which it really applied. 

I submit this interesting solution of the matter for your 
consideration. It is certainly in conformity with the known 
facts in the case and with the precise terms of the tradition, 
and it seems to me to be much more credible than the theory 
set forth by the committee. 

I hope these brief notes and comments may interest you, and 
I shall be pleased to hear what degree of importance you may 
attach to them. 

Yours, with great respect, 

Gilbert L. Streeter. 

Salem, Mass., January 1, 1900. 



THE 



"OLD RELIC" 

AT SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS 



ITS IDENTITY 



WITH THE 



FIRST MEETING HOUSE 

QUESTIONED 



A LETTER 



TO 



MR. THOMAS CARROLL, 

OF PEABODY, 



CONCERNING 



THE FIRST MEETING-HOUSE 

IN SALEM, MASS. 

By gilbert L STREETER, 

Member of the Institute. 



SALEM, MASS.: 

Newcomb & Gauss, Printers. 
1900. 




ILliiHi 








